


Under Absolute Despotism

by zapdosmaster145



Category: Phineas and Ferb
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 04:12:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 50,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14968838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zapdosmaster145/pseuds/zapdosmaster145
Summary: Disaster strikes on the Fourth of July and a mysterious platypus saves the lives of Phineas and Ferb. One crisis leads to another when Phineas accidentally learns of Isabella's crush! All the while, a wicked threat looms somewhere in the distance, watching. And so much more! You don't want to miss this one! Originally posted on FF.net





	1. Chapter 1

**Preface**

**Before I say anything, it must be noted that I do not own Phineas and Ferb! But you probably already knew that, just had to get the technicalities out of the way. This story is to celebrate the 4th of July, the American Independence Day. As such, it may come off as a little ethnocentric in places. But more than being about the USA, my native country, it is also intended to celebrate freedom everywhere, and I hope that's something we can all respect. Either way, it is still a fictional story with a heavy helping of improbable science fiction, so any similarities that exist between this story and other stories or even real life are purely coincidental. My sincerest hope is that you will enjoy it! Thanks and happy reading!**

* * *

Chapter 1

Headquarters, Department of Homeland Security  
Washington, D. C.  
July 15, 2049

The prisoner was guided to a metal door and led inside. It was a small interrogation room, the kind with a table in the middle and a one-way glass watching from the far wall. The prisoner was roughly handled onto the chair facing the dark window, causing him to wince slightly as he was still recovering from his wounds of the past few days. His guards uncuffed him and left him to stare at his reflection in solitude. He had waited about fifteen minutes when an important looking man with broad shoulders and heavily-tanned skin entered and sat across from him.

The man extracted a manila folder and opened it on the desk. "You've got an impressive record," he read. "Graduated first in class, served with distinction for the last six years in the Secret Service," he listed. "Not a bad résumé. But if you think that's gonna help you at all, you can forget it."

He paused, searching the prisoner's face for a reaction. He didn't get one.

"But of course, you already know that." The man interlaced his fingers over the folder. "Considering what you've done, I can't see anything less than prison for the rest of your life," he smirked. "In fact, some of my buddies and I have a bet going on. They think it'll be prison, but you want to know what I think?" The man leaned in a little closer.

The prisoner could have been a statue.

"I think you'll be executed," the man breathed. "Sure, even for traitors like yourself, capital punishment was done away with in the '20s when we achieved total suspended animation. But considering we're dealing with a freak like  _you_ , the law may not apply."

Although he still didn't say a word, the prisoner visibly bristled at that. It at least gave the interrogator something to look smug about. "Ultimately, the choice is yours. If you confess, it'll probably be prison; and if you don't—well, we'll see. So, what's it gonna be? I don't feel like sitting here looking at your ugly mug for much longer, so this will be your only chance."

The prisoner looked him in the eyes with all traces of emotion flushed once more from his face. Finally he opened his mouth. "Get me my lawyer first, then I'll tell you everything."

The man scowled. "Fine, if that's the way you want to play." He pressed a button on his side of the desk. Momentarily, a guard opened the door. "Retrieve the prisoner's lawyer," he requested, and several minutes later, a thin young woman in a gray business dress was escorted in.

"Your timing is impeccable," he commented as she took a seat to one side of the desk.

"Luckily, I was already on my way over," she said in return, pulling out some equipment from her brief-purse.

They turned to the prisoner. "Alright," the interrogator said, "let's get this over with. You can start by telling us why you attempted to assassinate the director of the CIA."

Closing his eyes, the prisoner took a deep breath. "To fully understand what I did," he explained, "you have to remember who I am. As a member of the Secret Service, it is my job—no, my duty, to—."

"Yes, yes, we know what you do," the interrogator interrupted impatiently. "You are sworn to protect the President of the United States of America with your very life. After all, that is why you are here."

The prisoner nodded. "That's correct. But if you want me to speak,  _sir_ ," he made no effort to hide the rudeness in his voice, "you will have to stop interrupting me."

The inspector crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.

"Please," the lawyer said kindly, trying to calm the tension in the atmosphere. "Continue."

The prisoner exhaled. "It is a long story," he said, closing his eyes for a moment. "I don't expect someone who didn't actually experience it to believe me, but I assure you it's all true."

The interrogator rose suddenly. "Stop stalling," he barked, slamming his hands down on the desk. "I'm getting sick of the theatrics!"

"Well, if you keep interrupting me, you're only going to make it take longer!" The prisoner shouted back unflinchingly, bristling in his seat once again.

The woman stood and leveled herself with the interrogator, displaying an alarming amount of fierceness herself. "He has the right to tell his story," she glowered at the man.

"Does he?" He snapped back. "Do any of his kind have rights? He's a traitor!"

"Remember the words, 'innocent until proven guilty'?" The lawyer replied. "They're one of the many inspired ideals upon which this nation was founded. Unless there's something else you want to say?"

After a tense moment, the interrogator murmured a soft, "No, ma'am," and retook his seat. The lawyer did so also, looking back at the prisoner. "Tell us what happened," she said kindly.

The prisoner swallowed. "As I was saying, my duties as part of the Secret Service have required me to travel all over. My missions have taken me everywhere from Lebanon to Qaraq, from Russia to Spain, once I was even stationed briefly at Mars. But two weeks ago, I was assigned on a mission to somewhere even I've never been before.

"Now, I'll ask you once again to let me tell my story, no matter how strange it gets. That is the only way we're gonna get through this." He waited for the other two to nod before continuing. "Because it is a very long story. So long, in fact, that it began thirty-five years ago."

* * *

Danville, USA  
July 4, 2014

"Happy Independence Day, Candace!" Phineas exclaimed brightly as his big sister padded barefoot down the stairs in her pajamas.

"Happy Independence Day," she said back before inhaling deeply. "Wow, Mom, that smells delicious!"

"Did you forget our family tradition?" Phineas teased. "Mom always makes a big breakfast on the Fourth of July!"

Candace quickly took her seat at the table. "Good, 'cause I'm starving! What'cha cookin'?"

Phineas chuckled and whispered to Ferb, "Hey, Candace sounded like Isabella just barely!"

Linda proudly turned to face her children. "Today's breakfast is blueberry pancakes with strawberry topping. I call them 'Freedom Flapjacks', because they've got red, white, and blue!"

"Neat, Mom!" Phineas said with a wide smile as he grabbed a plate.

"Go ahead and eat all you want," Linda told the kids, placing a full tray in the center of the table. "There's plenty."

"Awesome!" Phineas cheered as he heaved a thick stack onto his plate. As he did so, there was a faint chirruping noise emanating from the corner.

"Oh, and happy Independence Day to you too, Perry!" Phineas exclaimed once more. "Hey Mom, can we give Perry some Freedom Flapjacks? After all, even platypuses deserve to celebrate a holiday, too!"

"I suppose there's enough for him to have one or two," Linda said. "Just be sure to save some for your Father when he wakes up."

"Sure thing," Phineas replied, and for a brief period, there was happy silence as everyone ate. Phineas was halfway through his second pancake when he turned to his step-brother and asked, "So, what endeavor should we engage in today?"

Ferb raised a finger as if he was about to say something, or perhaps it was to show he wanted to finish chewing, but either way was cut off by Linda.

"Well, for starters, the parade is going to be starting soon," said she. "Then we're planning a little barbeque with the whole neighborhood for a late lunch. There will be all sorts of games, and when it gets dark, we'll go watch the fireworks. It'll be a busy day."

"Sounds like it," Phineas agreed. "Well, we should go down after breakfast to get good spots for the parade."

"I think that's a great idea," Linda said, turning to head up the stairs. "Why don't I go wake up your Father so we can all be ready."

As soon as their mother departed, Candace gave the boys the stink eye. "You two better not be hatching anything today," she said, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

"Candace, the only one who can hatch anything around here is Perry, if he ever hatches an egg," Phineas gestured before returning to his food.

"Whatever," Candace said with an eye-roll. "Just remember, Mom and Dad will be with us all day today, so if you get any funny ideas, I'll have no choice but to tell them. Not only will it be a busy day, it'll be a  _bust day!_ Hey, are you even listening?"

Phineas looked back up from his breakfast. "Sorry, Candace, these pancakes are just so good! What were you saying?"

Candace growled. "Forget it."

Phineas finished his plate and saw Ferb do the same. As he stood, inspiration struck. "That's it, Ferb! I know what we're gonna do today!" And before Candace knew it, they had both speedily vacated the kitchen for the backyard, leaving the girl alone with the platypus.

"That's weird, usually someone's wondering where you are by now," she told her pet.

Perry chattered back. "Grdrdrdrdrdrd."

"Hey, I don't judge."

* * *

The Museum was closed for the holiday, so there was no one around to notice when the hall labelled "Gadgets Through The Ages" suddenly flared brilliantly with a strange, otherworldly illumination. In a moment the light resided, and a dark figure crept past the shadows of the quiet wing. The personage paused shortly to gain its bearings before moving on, making its way toward the city.

* * *

Everyone in the Flynn-Fletcher family, including Perry, waited piled in the car as Lawrence searched in vain for a convenient parking space.

"Aha! I see one!" He spotted and hit the gas, throwing the other occupants back in their seats in a mad dash to beat a silver jeep to the spot.

"Great, Dad," Candace replied sarcastically as she pushed her hair out of her face. "Remind me to drive next time; at least  _I_ have parallel parking down, and I don't drive on the wrong side of the road."

"Always have to bring that up, don't you?" He replied with a mild tone that said he didn't take offense.

The family stepped out of the car to join the thronging crowds on the trek to the parade route. The sun shone brightly from the deep blue sky above, and the day was already beginning to get very warm. Phineas carried Perry in his arms as they took in the sights and smells of the colorful surroundings. A series of shrill crackles and loud bangs nearby testified that someone had already begun digging into his or her bag of fireworks.

As the group moved through the concourse, slowly making their way about the streets, Lawrence suddenly spoke: something had apparently caught his eye. "I say, is that an antique peddler?" He asked, pointing to a merchant by the way. "I had better go look at this." With that, he broke from the others and disappeared into the multitude.

Linda sighed. "Sometimes your father gets a little too excited about these things," she told the children. "You guys go on ahead and find a spot. Candace, you watch the boys until your father and I get back," she directed before following after her husband.

"Guess who just got put in charge!" Candace smirked. "Hey, where do you two think you're going?"

"To the parade," Phineas answered over his shoulder as he and Ferb walked onward. "Aren't you coming?"

"Gah!" Candace bounded down the sidewalk to catch up. "Mom said I'm supposed to be watching you guys!"

"Well that's good," Phineas replied, "since we made one for you, too."

"Made one what?" She asked.

"A parade float," Phineas said, stopping. He pointed, and Candace saw two large floats decorated brightly in red, blue, and white. One had a paper-mache rendering of a platypus standing at inattention before a field of stars and stripes, the other had a giant wooden Fireside Girl statue saluting the American flag.

"You guys made floats for the parade?" Candace asked.

"We did," Phineas said. "The one with Perry on it is for us; the other one is for the Fireside Girls' troop, that's the one you get to ride!"

"Hey, Candace!" Isabella greeted in full Fireside uniform. "Uh, you did remember to bring your uniform, right?"

Candace wagged a finger at her brothers. "Oh, you guys are so busted!" With that, she turned on her heel and disappeared into the crowd.

"I think she's going back to get it," Phineas told Isabella.

* * *

"Where is she? Mom couldn't have gotten very far!" Candace said aloud as she searched the crowd in vain. Suddenly a loud cheer erupted, signaling the start of the parade. "Urgh! I better find her soon!" She scanned the area and spotted a fire escape ladder ascending the side of a nearby apartment complex. "Perfect!"

Candace approached the fire escape and climbed, allowing her to see over the top of the crowd. Shading her eyes with her hand, she scoped near and far in search of her quarry. To one side, the parade marched on to the beat of the clapping crowd. Runners up and down handed out candy to small children while floats flaunted their various waving VIP's. As the progression moved on, Love Händel made a brief appearance, singing a collection of patriotic songs. Candace only paid enough attention to make sure her brothers hadn't gone by yet, but despite her best efforts she could not find her mother in the street below. Ever higher she climbed hoping for a better vantage point until she was finally on the roof, frantically scanning in all directions for a flash of her mother's red hair.

Meanwhile, Phineas and Ferb had begun a search of their own.

"Where's Perry?" Phineas asked. "He ought to be part of the parade, too. Isabella, have you seen him?"

She shrugged. "I thought he was here just a minute ago."

"It's almost our turn to join the parade," Phineas pointed out, letting a rare frown cross his face. "I'd hate to have to start without him."

"I wouldn't worry too much," Isabella comforted. "He always knows just the right place to turn up."

"Yeah," Phineas looked up. "I guess you're right. Maybe he'll see the big platypus on the float and it'll help him find us."

Isabella nodded. The last of their preparations were finished by rolling the floats into place and everyone went to their positions. Finally it was their turn to advance and make their debut.

"You guys ready?" Phineas called to Isabella and her troop.

"Ready!"

Ferb pressed a remote button and the floats began to crawl forward. The two floats entered the street side-by-side, greeted by the cheers of the crowds.

Any worry Phineas had previously didn't show now as he smiled and waved with the others. An enormous banner behind him and Ferb displayed the words, "Happy Independence Day!" and megaphone speakers played  _Stars and Stripes Forever_. There was a boom as streamers and confetti burst from the front of the float, erupting like a thundershower of red, white, and blue. The crowd loved it. Up above, Candace had to cover her ears when she heard a bursting cacophony of cheer and applause mixed with the sound of shrieking fireworks.

The show wasn't over yet. Phineas pulled a switch lever to his side, and a platform rose high in the air from the rear of his float. A bubble-like portal opened and two slides extended from the flanks to touch down on the ground; then two lines of men popped up through a trap door underneath and rhythmically slid down to form a dance circle in the street around the float.

Upon closer inspection, the men who were now dancing in sync to the music from the speakers looked robotic, and not just because they were doing the robot. Their features were mechanical yet distinctly represented every President of the United States in animatronic perfection and likeness. "Hail to the Chief" was replaced by a new, upbeat tempo, and they started to sing in their techno-robotic voices.

 _We are the Presidents,_  
We're here to sing and dance.  
We formed a more perfect union  
With strangely fitting pants.  
Our heritage of justice  
We anxiously preserved,  
Although our voters sometimes  
Criticized the way we served.

 _We are the Presidents,_  
Our likenesses are uncanny.  
These robotic exoskeletons  
Emphasize that we are manly.  
Despite the metals forming  
Our structures and our joints,  
Our historical knowledge  
Overcomes all other points.

 _We are the Presidents,_  
From Washington to Bush.  
Obama would be here  
But he's back there sitting on his tush.

The Obama robot was indeed sitting on the side of the float. "That's not supposed to mean anything," he said to fill the break in music, "we just couldn't think of anything else that rhymed with 'Bush'."

The song continued.

 _We are the Presidents;_  
The Executive Branch, some say.  
With checks and balances in place  
To make sure we aren't Kings one day.  
Some say it's a republic,  
A sure democracy,  
To keep such things in order  
And prevent anarchy.

(All)  _We are the Presidents,_  
(Washington) _I once chopped down a tree._  
(Lincoln)  _I never told a lie,_  
(FDR)  _There's no feeling in my knees!_  
(Teddy Roosevelt)  _I carry a big stick,_  
(Jackson)  _And I'm called 'Old Hickory.'_  
(All)  _And you can learn about us all_  
By studying his-tor-eee!

_Happy Fourth of July!_

The finale was met with a ferocious cheer from the crowd, who loved the performance. Each of the animatronic robots bowed and returned speedily to the interior of the float. Candace, watching it all from above, looked on in horror as the ultimate bust literally danced away before her with no chance now of her mother seeing. "No! No! No!" She repeated, looking down from the rooftop. "Mom can't be missing this! Where is she?"

Candace desperately cast her eyes over the street below, hoping beyond hope it wasn't too late. In her zeal she leaned just a little too far out over the ledge, and before she could do anything gravity pulled her into its deadly clutches. Fortunately she felt herself slipping and grabbed the edge as she fell, catching herself by her fingers to dangle from the side of the rooftop.

"Help!" She screamed from her suddenly dangerous position. "Somebody HELP ME!" Candace could scream very loudly when she needed to, and the crowd below heard her pleas through the noise.

"That girl is going to fall!" Someone announced, and it took less than a second for everyone to turn and see Candace hanging from the tall building.

Phineas saw too. "Oh no! Ferb, that looks like Candace!" He said, eyes wide with sudden fear for his sister. "We gotta do something, quick!"

He and Ferb looked around for something that could help. Ferb pointed at the huge banner at the rear of the float. "Brilliant!" Phineas said, jumping into action. Ferb extracted the float's remote control from his pocket and guided it for the space directly below Candace. Bystanders rushed to get out of the float's way while Phineas tore the banner from one post, speeding forth to stretch it into a makeshift trampoline for her to land on.

"I can't hold on!" Candace yelled as her grip slipped a fraction.

"Candace, it's gonna be okay!" Phineas called back as Ferb arrived to assist in holding the landing tarp. "We'll catch you!"

The endangered teenager slipped again, and in an instant the tiny amount of friction applied by her fingers was overpowered by gravity's relentlessness; she fell, screaming all the while.

True to their word, the brother protégés braced to catch her. Candace absorbed into the center of the banner and was immediately sent flying on the rebound. She flew through the air, arcing over the street to land gracelessly draped around the shoulders of the Fireside Girl statue on the other float.

"Well, that's an improvement," Phineas stated, "now how are we gonna get her off that?"

As if the universe itself undertook to answer his question, the nails securing the base of the statue ruptured at the added weight; and it tilted precariously to the side, sending Isabella and her troop ducking for cover. Bystanders on the other side of the street scattered now as it leaned further, little by little, threatening to crash into the sidewalk. Several more nails failed as the falling figurine gained momentum, and Candace screamed again as it came crashing down into a telephone pole, settling to lean at an angle a few feet above the street.

Miraculously, Candace wasn't hurt, though the shock had left her momentarily stunned and she flopped weakly onto solid ground.

"Candace, are you okay?" Phineas ran to her side followed by Ferb. Their sister grunted, and her face was a little pale, but she seemed to be alright.

"Yeah," she said, sitting up slowly, "if by 'okay,' you mean I almost died and got crushed by your stupid statue, then I'm great."

"She's okay," Phineas told Ferb, as if clarifying to someone who couldn't catch the sarcasm, before assisting Candace to her feet.

Upon standing and dusting herself off, Candace turned to her brothers and glowered. "Alright, not only did you two and your lame-oh project ruin the parade," she seethed, indicating at the tipped Fireside Girl and the mess in the street, "I almost got crushed by that thing!"

"No harm, no foul," Phineas said, trying to calm her down.

"Ooh! I—you—urgh!" Apparently too exasperated to do more than point and growl, she turned to the gawking crowd. "What are you all looking at?" She said before storming through their ranks, disappearing quickly.

"I guess that could have gone over better," Phineas directed at Ferb. Just then, the wooden telephone pole to their side groaned loudly.

"Watch out!" Someone from the crowd yelled, and the step-brothers looked to see the pole suddenly snap and give way under the weight of the statue. Already it was falling, falling straight for them, and they had no time to react. Phineas knew they would be crushed for sure.

"Phineas!" Isabella cried from somewhere in the background.

All attention focused on the collapsing pole, nobody saw the figure dart out of the shadows. Small and stealthy it was, yet quick and powerful, too. With lightning speed, the figure swept underneath to grab Phineas and Ferb with one arm each, pulling them into the air and blasting into the sky.

Phineas realized that somehow, he was still alive, and what was more, he was held tightly in place by an unusually strong grip. One by one, his senses came back online; first he heard a roaring coming from somewhere behind him, then he looked and saw the rooftops of buildings passing by not far below. To his side, Ferb's ever neutral expression told Phineas that he didn't seem to have a clue what was going on, either. One particular rooftop below them neared and they slowed down to land softly on its surface. Only then did the vicelike grip release him and his brother.

Phineas immediately turned to speak. "Thank you for saving—huh?" The red-headed genius stopped short with mouth agape when he saw Ferb's and his rescuer. Before him stood a short, muscular individual who moved to unstrap his jetpack. The anthropomorphic figure was teal with a familiar looking beak and beaver tail, but the eyes were focused and very alert. Phineas could not believe his eyes, and he experienced a rare moment of speechlessness.

Ferb was taken aback just as much, but he was the first to recover his tongue. "Perry?" He asked, softly.

The platypus smiled and shook his head before opening his mouth. "Not quite, although I can see where you boys would be confused."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Phineas was used to abnormal. He reclassified what was weird. He redefined the impossible. Yet it wasn't enough to prepare him for this. Phineas didn't know how—after all, platypuses weren't supposed to do much! But unless his eyes and ears were deceiving him, Perry had just saved his and Ferb's lives, was standing on two legs, had expertly exercised the use of a jetpack, and on top of it all; had articulated a full sentence. In English. By talking. After a few moments to overcome the initial shock, whatever reservations he'd previously held about what a platypus can and cannot do, Phineas realized that it didn't really matter. All that mattered was they were alive, saved by this anthropomorphic, talking, flying platypus. One word registered in the young boy's mind:  _Cool!_

Phineas smiled at the platypus that stood before him—for standing at full height put him almost as tall as the boys—and stepped forward to throw his arms around him. "Oh, Perry! Thank you so much for saving our lives!"

The platypus tried to duck out of reach, alarmed. "Didn't you hear what I just said? I'm not Perry! He can't talk!"

Phineas pulled back. "I guess not," he decided, a disappointed look crossing his face. "It's just that you look exactly like him!"

"You know, that would be considered offensive where I come from," the platypus replied, turning to look over the city.

Phineas looked at Ferb, who shrugged. "Well, then, where are you from?"

The new platypus didn't answer immediately. He merely paused before facing the boys again. "Let's just get you guys safely back to your family," said he, indicating toward a set of stairs exiting the rooftop.

Phineas didn't move. "Will you at least tell us your name?"

The platypus sighed. "I guess that much won't hurt. My name is PJ."

"Well, PJ, I'm Phineas, and this is my brother, Ferb," Phineas said as PJ moved past to open the door. Their mysterious new friend turned to hold it open for them.

"I know," he simply said.

* * *

Candace was so annoyed with herself that she hadn't thought to  _just call Mom._  It was so painfully simple. All this time, she realized, had been wasted trying to  _look_  for her—during a prime opportunity to bust her brothers, no less. Now, looking at Phonesy-Wonesy, she wasn't sure if she'd rather operate it properly or hurl it at the nearest brick wall.

Fortunately reason prevailed and she dialed her mother's number, waiting for her to pick up.

"Yes, Candace?"

"Mom, where are you? Did you see the parade?"

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Linda replied as she and Lawrence drove along, an antique dresser with an inexplicable floating baby head tightly fastened to the roof of the car. "Your father just had to have it, it's a—what is it again, dear?"

"It's a colonial dresser with hand-engraved markings and an unusual accessory that I'm sure originated from the East India Trading Company!" he exclaimed. "A rare find indeed, and perfectly themed for a day like today!"

"There you have it," Linda said, grinning slightly at her husband's giddiness. "We're just running it to the shop to drop it off real fast, honey, and we'll be back to pick you up after."

"But Mom!" Candace retorted, "Phineas and Ferb were in the parade and they made these huge floats that had singing robots and a creepy Fireside Girl that tried to crush me and hydrochloric acid—wait, that was probably just when I lost my lunch—but I almost died!"

"Uh-huh," Linda said, barely listening, "that's nice, sweetie. We'll see you there soon enough, kay? Bye." And she hung up.

Candace clenched her phone and growled. "Of course she doesn't believe me. That's just my luck." Muttering under her breath, she stomped off to locate her brothers.

* * *

"So how are you able to talk?" Phineas asked PJ, who was leading the boys down the stairwell. "Were you exposed to some kind of radiation? Or, maybe you're some kind of android? Oh, I know! A crazed scientist had you drink a top-secret special formula, and it made you intelligent! Is that what happened? Is it?"

PJ rounded on Phineas angrily. "Look, just because I'm an animal doesn't mean I'm unintelligent!" He growled, pointing a finger at him. "You'd be surprised how much we really notice! Plus, you humans can be pretty dull-headed sometimes yourselves."

Phineas took a step back. "I'm sorry," he said, "I—didn't mean to sound insensitive."

"It's okay," whispered PJ, taking a deep breath. "I forget, you're both a little young to understand what you're talking about."

"Huh," Phineas admitted, "normally a sentence like that leaves me saying, 'yes, yes we are,' but for once it doesn't work so much here."

Their web-footed guide shook his head and took to descending the stairs again. For whatever reason, most likely due to the parade, the building was virtually empty; they didn't see any signs of life while they walked.

"So how do you know Perry?" inquired Phineas.

"Why do you ask so many questions?" PJ replied irritably.

"An insatiable appetite of curiosity," Phineas responded. "And for that matter, how did you know who we were?"

"I just do, okay!" He raised his voice enough that it wasn't a yell, but the sound could be heard echoing through the empty halls. "No more questions!"

The three descended for a minute in silence but for the pattering of their footsteps. Each electric light bulb they passed under showed Phineas was struggling to keep his thoughts in his head. Then, like the gushing of a geyser that can be stopped by no lid, Phineas spoke again. "So, have you ever been to Australia? You don't have an accent, so you must have at least learned to talk around Americans."

Exasperated, the reticent monotreme threw his hands in the air. "Why do you even care?" He directed at Phineas. "I'm here on very important business, and having a friendly get-to-know-you is not part of it!" When he saw the slightly hurt look in Phineas' eyes, he retracted a little. "Look, fellas, I'm not supposed to tell you about all that stuff, even if I wanted to."

"Why not?" asked Phineas.

"I'm just not," he repeated. "You seem like nice kids and all, but I'm only here to do my job, and that's it. Okay? So let's just get you two back to your parents."

There was a certain finality in his tone, and Phineas respected it enough that he didn't speak the rest of the way out. He still wanted to be polite toward his and Ferb's rescuer, even if this unusual talking platypus seemed a little anxious to get on with his life. They were almost to the ground floor now, and they quickly made their way for the nearest exit. It didn't take long to find, and they stepped out into the bright sun.

In a businesslike voice, PJ turned to the boys and asked, "So, where are your parents at?"

"Um," Phineas thought, "we haven't seen them since the parade started, but I'm sure they're around here somewhere." Suddenly he snapped his fingers. "I bet Candace is with them!" He almost enthusiastically took off sprinting in the direction they had flown in from, but PJ stopped him.

"Wait!" He commanded. "I can't go out there like this!"

"Like what?" Phineas questioned.

"I have to look like an ordinary platypus," PJ explained. "If people see me walking and talking, they'll get suspicious. I can't attract attention to myself."

"Okay," Phineas said, "but why?"

PJ hesitated. "It's complicated. Here, just wait a second—." PJ crouched down on all fours and instantly became the spitting image of a mindless pet platypus. "There. Now I can accompany you to your family. And remember, I can't talk when I'm trying to blend in, so don't say anything to me. I know that'll be hard for you, Phineas, but from now on, all I can say is, 'grdrdrdrdrdrd'." PJ's eyes unfocused and he chirruped in perfect imitation of Perry's signature chatter.

"Well, what are we supposed to do?" asked Phineas.

"Pretend I'm Perry. Act normally. And don't tell anyone who I really am, or about what happened earlier."

"But what about Perry? The real one?"

"He'll be back. Now stop talking to me!" When Phineas still looked like he wanted to say something, PJ cut him off with a forceful "Go!"

"Okay, okay!" Phineas said, and they began to move on back the way they came. It didn't take long before they ran into members of the crowd, for the parade was over and the people were heading home. They couldn't help but overhear some of the conversations that were being made. Most passersby said some variation of the following: "Did you hear there was an accident?" "Yeah, a couple of boys almost got hit by a falling telephone pole!" "I heard it was a giant falling cupcake!" "It wasn't a cupcake, you simpleton!" "What happened after that?" "Apparently, a flying duck or something caught them and flew away!" "It wasn't a duck, it was a beaver!" "Oh, right, a flying beaver—that makes as much sense as a giant cupcake!" "Hey, it could happen!" And so forth.

Phineas looked like he wanted to say something, but when PJ casually caught his eye (which was of itself remarkable considering the platypus was presently cross-eyed), he shrugged and kept moving. The crowd was dispersing quickly and they made good time on their way back to the starting point of the parade. At last, Phineas stopped and announced, "We're here, this is where we were at when the parade started. They should be around here somewhere."

He and Ferb had barely begun to cast their eyes about when a familiarly high-pitched squeal found their ears. "Phineas! Phineas! Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you are safe!"

Phineas turned to the source of the sound just in time to get his face enveloped by a thick curtain of dark-black hair as he was tackled in a hug that practically knocked the wind out of him. "Isabella?!" He gasped, "Ikaw gemoo!"

"What did you say?" she replied, releasing him. Phineas merely doubled over, inhaling sharply.

"Oh, sorry," she said. "Oh, and I'm glad you're safe too, Ferb," she cordially added with a pat on Ferb's shoulder, though it came off as more of an afterthought. "Boy, you sure did give me the fright of a lifetime."

"Well, we're safe now," Phineas said, still wincing.

"How'd you do it, anyway?" Isabella inquired. "Fly out from under that falling telephone pole, I mean. It happened so fast, even though I was right there I could barely see it! How'd you escape like that?"

"It's pretty simple," Phineas explained. "Ferb and I were about to—."

"Grdrdrdrdrd," PJ uttered, cutting him off.

Phineas looked quizzically at PJ, wondering why he'd been interrupted. "Um, you know what, we'll tell you all about it later," the young inventor noted, recognizing the warning in PJ's tone.

Isabella seemed to accept that. "Oh, by the way, Candace is here too." She angled her body away from the others, inserted two fingers into her mouth, and whistled extremely loudly. Instantly the troop of Fireside Girls gathered in an efficient line front and center, reporting for duty.

"I was calling for Candace, you guys," Isabella informed them.

"Aww," they griped, about facing to march away with a noticeably reduced spring in their step.

Candace arrived a moment later. "Oh, there you two are," she said, looking upset as usual as she stared down at her brothers. "About time you showed up." Just then, her phone rang in her pocket. She whipped it out and held it to her ear. "Hello?"

"Who is it?" Phineas asked. Candace ignored him, focusing on the muffled voice coming from her phone instead.

"Okay," she said, "we're just hanging out here with Isabella. What's that?" she asked when the muffled voice continued. Candace nodded once more and snapped her phone shut. "That was Mom, she says Dad and her are stuck in traffic."

"Dad and  _she,_ " Phineas corrected.

"Whatever. She also wants me to ask you, Isabella, if your Mom can give us a ride to the park. That way we can go with you to the neighborhood barbeque. They'll meet us there."

"It'll be a tight squeeze, but I'm sure she won't mind," Isabella responded. "Let me go ask."

Candace watched Isabella leave before rounding on her brothers. "Where have you two been?" She asked. "You know what? Nevermind. I don't even want to know." With that, she turned and stormed off.

" _Some_ body needs to take a chill pill," Phineas heard from his side.

"PJ! I thought you weren't supposed to be talking?"

"I know, Phineas, but your sister is seriously stuck up!" PJ spat. "She was a lot more relaxed when I—." PJ caught himself, looking like he almost let something slip.

"When you what?" Phineas prodded.

"Grdrdrdrdrdrd." PJ stuck out his tongue.

"Oh, we are  _so_  not done with this conversation," Phineas said out of the corner of his mouth, for he saw Isabella returning.

"Wha'cha doin'?" She asked cutely.

"Nothing! Nothing at all," Phineas said, doing his best to act natural by scratching his left ear.

"My Mom says it'll be fine," she informed them. "Hey, where's Candace?"

"We'll go get her," declared Phineas.

* * *

The transition to the park with Isabella was mildly awkward. Mrs. Garcia-Shapiro could be quite the chatterbox and virtually monopolized the flow of conversation the whole drive. It at least brought a feeling of normality back after what felt like an unusually hectic morning. The lingering nervousness about Candace's fall and the accident at the parade seemed to fade like a dream behind them. Only PJ still seemed wary, though he never reverted from his cover.

Despite heavy traffic, they reached the park by close to noon. The sun was high, and it was hot. There were a lot of people spread across the park; apparently this 'small' neighborhood barbeque included half of Danville. Mrs. Garcia-Shapiro needed to go help with cooking the food, so she left the kids to themselves, and Candace went off to find Jeremy. Phineas, Ferb, Isabella, and PJ ambled about, checking out what was going on.

The community had organized all kinds of games, everything from pie-eating contests to Ultimate Frisbee to bounce houses to beach volleyball to a large slip-n-slide and accompanying water balloon fight were scattered throughout the park. A pavilion to the northwest corner was where the food was being prepared, and it smelled delicious. Only one thing was missing, and that was a Phineas and Ferb project.

"Say, Ferb," Phineas asked his brother, "do we still have those animatronic robots from earlier? 'Cause I think I know what else we're gonna do today!"

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Isabella inquired.

"The latest in swim fashion would be helpful," responded Phineas.

"What," Isabella replied with a sly smile, "want to see how I look in a bikini?"

"Oh no," Phineas said. "I meant men's swimwear."

"Oh."

Isabella blushed and looked away. Fortunately she was saved from any awkward silence. A frantic Baljeet appeared at a run and tried to duck behind her, but to no avail. Buford found the group at that moment and announced his arrival by casting a water balloon at the displeased face of the nerd.

"Oh, hello, everyone," Baljeet said before vigorously shaking the water out of his hair. Buford just laughed.

"Hey, guys!" Phineas greeted in return. "Having fun?"

"Yeah!" Buford said. "I haven't had this much fun in ages! And want to know what I've always wondered?"

"What?" Phineas asked, not seeing the twinkle in the bully's eyes until it was too late.

"I've always wondered if your nose was pointy enough to pop a water balloon!" At that, Buford snatched a water balloon from his pocket and smacked Phineas in the face with it, gushing water all over the both of them. "And it totally is! Aha ha chuckle chuckle!"

"Did you just say, 'chuckle chuckle'?" Baljeet questioned.

"Got a problem with it?" Buford leered.

Baljeet backed off.

Phineas wiped his eyes clear, but the smile never left his face. "I guess I walked into that one, didn't I?" he quipped, not angry in the slightest.

"Yes," Isabella obligatorily replied. "Yes you did."

Everyone laughed at that, even Ferb gave a soft snort.

Suddenly Buford cupped a hand to his ear. "You guys hear that?" He asked, face lighting up like Christmas. "It's the ice cream truck!"

The rest of the group listened, and sure enough, the tinkling tune of a music box played somewhere in the distance. In unison kids around the park were turning, listening, then gleefully heading in the direction of the noise.

Buford dashed off. "Oh, Buford first!" they heard him yell.

"C'mon, guys," Phineas made to follow, "let's go get some ice cream!"

"Alright!" Isabella cheered at the suggestion.

Baljeet hesitated. "Would it not spoil our lunch?"

"You don't have to come if you don't want to," Isabella said over her shoulder. Baljeet sighed and followed the others to the curbside.

The line was already long by the time they got there. As they waited, Buford passed by licking a fudge bar. "I was first!" He proudly announced to nobody in general on his way by. "That's right, you losers, I was first!"

Finally they reached the front of the line. The ice cream truck driver was an attractive looking woman with beautiful blonde hair. She seemed to be in her thirties, perhaps, but she looked young for her age. She turned to Isabella with a kind look in her eyes and said, "And what can I get for you, pretty girl?"

"Can I get a Rainbow Ripple Bar?" Isabella asked.

"Why certainly," the woman said sweetly, and disappeared for a moment from the window. When she reappeared, she had a sad look. "Oh, I'm sorry, but I can't seem to find any."

"Oh," Isabella said. "It's okay, I can get something else."

"No, please," the woman said in a kind voice. "I know I have more in stock somewhere. Would you mind coming into the van to help me look?"

"Um, it's okay," Isabella tilted her head slightly. "I don't want to be a bother."

"Oh, it's no bother, my dear. In fact, you two boys," she indicated, pointing at Phineas and Ferb, "you can come in too, and help us look."

Phineas looked at the others. "Well, okay," he said, "if it's alright for us to be in there."

"Oh don't be silly. Come on in through this door and go check the back of the van." The woman opened the driver's side door and Phineas, Ferb, and Isabella climbed in. They made their way to the back, inspecting every box of ice cream they passed.

"I found it!" Phineas exclaimed. "It was right here, I don't know how you could miss it!" He bent down to pick it up. The moment he touched the box, the top burst open and coils of rope looped themselves around the three children. "Hey, this isn't ice cream! This is rope!" He stated the obvious, finding himself bound tightly with arms pinned at his side.

"I'm sorry, we're closed now!" The woman called out the window before shutting and locking it. A steel mesh cage that had been hidden before now crashed down to seal the kids in, and she laughed wickedly as she jumped in the driver's seat, revved the engine, and sped off with them in tow.

"Hey, what gives?" Phineas yelled through the cage in the rear. "I'm starting to think you aren't a nice ice cream truck lady after all!"

The blonde woman cackled loudly. "That's because I'm not!" she said.

"You're kidnapping us!" Isabella accused from Phineas' side.

"Right you are, my dear!" The woman observed. "You are both pretty and smart."

"What do you want with us?" Phineas asked.

"Oh, it's quite simple, really," she answered. "I want you gone. Lost. Forgotten from history. I'm going to change the world! I'm going to make it so that you aren't remembered by anything but an obscure obituary from long ago!" Her face glinted pure evil as she cackled again.

"What are you talking about?" Phineas asked. "Why are you doing this?"

"You do ask a lot of questions, don't you, boy?"

"That's what I'm told."

A loud  _THUD!_  sounded suddenly from the roof. "What was that?" the woman asked. Everyone watched, stunned to paralysis, as a blue flame peeked through the metal and slowly drew a foot-wide circle. "We have a visitor!" the woman exclaimed, and she swerved hard to the side. That seemed to work as there was a slamming noise and the blue flame disappeared, but it was back in seconds to continue its work.

"I think it's PJ!" Phineas whispered to the others.

"Who's—" Isabella tried to ask but was stopped when she lost her balance by another swerve. Phineas did his best to catch her, but that proved difficult while tied up and he mostly shoulder-checked her into the stable corner.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm good," she said, blushing a little when she realized how close they were leaning now.

Above, the circle in the ceiling completed itself and the metal piece fell through, creating a foot-wide hole. A platypus jumped through, landing in a ninja-like pose—inside the cage the others were trapped in.

"Wahahaha!" The kidnapper laughed, pulling over to climb out of the driver's seat and meet the new prisoner. "This has to be the most pathetic rescue attempt I've ever seen! Now, you're trapped in there too, you—oh, you're a  _platypus!_ "

"Let us go!" Phineas demanded, glancing at Isabella.

"Phineas," PJ said confidently while putting his body between the woman and the kids, "stand back. I have this completely under control."

"He talks?" Isabella squeaked.

"You talk?" The woman echoed. "Well now, that is interesting. There aren't supposed to be any talking animals for at least another twenty-five years!"

"Who are you?" PJ shouted.

The woman thought for a moment. "I am someone who envisions a new future. And I'm guessing you would know something about that, wouldn't you?"

PJ growled.

Phineas spoke up. "What is she talking about?" he asked PJ.

"Oh, you haven't told them?" The woman laughed. "Figures. You're probably afraid of messing up the whole 'space-time continuum' and everything—well, let me enlighten you. I'll tell you how it ends, right now! You will fail! I have already foreseen it!"

"Save it," PJ barked. "The future is never certain! We have stopped people like you before, and we'll stop you again!"

"You may," the woman calmly stated. "But eventually, you will fail, and that day we will rewrite history once and for all. Then it won't matter that you ever delayed our plans in the first place, because it will be like it all never happened!"

PJ turned to face Phineas, Ferb, and Isabella. "Give me one moment, guys," he said. "This shouldn't take too long." He then whipped out the plasma torch he'd cut through the roof with and effortlessly sliced up and down through the mesh wall, quickly splicing it into a doorframe they could all fit through. "Now," he smirked, turning again to the kidnapper, "you were saying?" But she was gone, out the open driver's side door.

PJ rushed out and scanned up and down the street, but didn't see any sign of her. He cursed under his breath. Returning to pick and tug at the restraints of the others, he asked, "Are you guys alright?"

"As right as Copernicus," Phineas said as he wiggled out of his ropes. "Thanks for saving us, again!"

"Don't mention it," PJ replied once he had helped them all free themselves.

"So does this mean we get to keep all this ice cream?" Phineas asked, looking about the cabin.

"Always looking on the bright side, aren't you?" PJ asked.

Suddenly Isabella interrupted. "Is someone going to tell me what's going on, or do I need to go look it up on the internet?" she asked, sounding annoyed at being forgotten about.

"Oh, sorry," Phineas said. "Isabella, this is PJ the platypus. He's been with us ever since Perry—wait a second!" A light bulb went off in the young boy's head, accompanied by a snap of his fingers. "You are Perry, aren't you!? Maybe you've just been pretending like you were a regular platypus all along, but—"

"Phineas?" PJ tried to cut him off.

"But really you've been this kick-butt action hero who walks and talks and saves peoples' lives when no one is looking!"

"Phineas?" he tried again.

"Now it all makes perfect sense! When Perry's not around, you're here! Plus you look exactly like him, not in the way that all platypuses look alike; I mean you could be his identical twin! Why didn't I see it before?"

"Phineas!" PJ raised his voice this time, finally halting the boy's diarrhea-of-the-mouth. "I'm not Perry! Okay? I don't have a secret identity, I don't go around saving peoples' lives all the time, and I don't wear a fedora!"

Phineas slumped. "I know, I just got carried away. And what does a fedora have to do with anything?"

PJ shook his head. "Nevermind that. Listen, I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, but things have changed, and the situation is more grave than I thought."

"What is it?" Isabella asked, noticing the stress in his voice.

"Don't you think it odd that your lives have been in danger twice today?" PJ asked.

"Well yeah," Phineas thought, "I suppose so."

"And didn't you think it was weird when that lady was talking about rewriting the future?"

"Yeah, that didn't seem to make much sense."

PJ nodded. "That's because, somehow, she was from the future, and she was trying to change it."

PJ expected the kids to be astonished, to be disbelieving, to be something, but they weren't. "Ah," Phineas merely said. "I guess that would make sense."

Ironically it was PJ that was now astonished. "You believe me? I come along and say that a time-traveling woman from the future just tried to kidnap you, and you just  _accept_  it?"

"Well, sure," Phineas stated. "After all,  _you_  are a talking platypus, so what else really is that hard to believe? Besides, Ferb and I have had some time-traveling adventures of our own."

"Okay," PJ said, wiping his face with one of his free hands. "That makes the next part easier.  _I_  am also from the future. That's why I didn't want to tell you anything about me earlier, Phineas. I didn't want to affect the future in any way. I'm sorry if I sounded rude, but I was trying to keep you safe."

"It's alright," Phineas forgave, "I know you were just doing what you thought was right. But why are you here?"

"To protect you," PJ succinctly stated. "You see, in the future, once time travel becomes technologically possible, the government heavily regulates what kind of travel takes place. No one is allowed to go beyond a certain point in the past, the day time travel was created, to make sure they don't try any shenanigans like creating time loops or alternate futures or paradoxes."

"To keep the Grandfather Paradox theoretical, and not a reality," Phineas realized.

"Exactly." PJ nodded.

"The Grandfather Paradox?" Isabella asked. "What's that?"

"Simply put," Phineas explained, "imagine someone goes back in time and kills their own grandfather. Consequently, one of their parents would never be born, therefore they would never meet, therefore that person would never be born. But, if he or she was never born, how could they possibly go back in time to kill their own grandfather and make this all happen? It's a paradox, a logical fallacy in that the effect must happen before the cause. It makes time travel very tricky."

PJ gave an affirming nod. "And very dangerous. It's only happened a few times. I'm part of the special government task force that takes jurisdiction over preventing something like that from happening, and luckily, we've been successful so far."

"So what did that ice cream lady want from us?" Isabella asked.

PJ bit his lip. "This is the reason I hoped it wouldn't come to this," he said. "No one is supposed to know too much about their futures. But for your own protection, I must tell you. Do you kids know about the secret service?"

"The guys in black suits who are the President's bodyguards?" Phineas asked. "Yeah, they protect him from assassination attempts and stuff. They were formed to protect the President after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln."

"Well, technically we were formed in 1865, yes, but we didn't protect the POTUS—sorry, the President Of The United States—full-time until after the assassination of William McKinley," PJ corrected. "After time travel became a reality, an assassin by the name of Ricardo James Louis attempted to go back in time to the 70's to kill President Clayton while he was still a baby, preventing him from ever becoming President in the first place. That was the first time we had to be dispatched for a mission in the past, and it was only natural that the secret service go. Ever since then, we have been monitoring the time-stream carefully to make sure nobody attempted it again. And nobody has, until today."

"So, what you're saying is, you work for the secret service?" Phineas asked.

"I do." PJ answered. "Or, to be more accurate, I will."

"But that still doesn't make sense," Isabella interjected. "Why wouldn't the CIA handle something like that?"

"Because the CIA isn't responsible for protecting Presidents." PJ paused. "Or future Presidents."

It went silent as the children contemplated the implications of what this platypus-agent was saying. A future President of the United States was standing in that very room. If you could call the back of an ice cream truck a room. PJ let it sink in.

"So that's why you were protecting Ferb and me," Phineas spoke. "You knew that we would be in danger, since you're from the future, and it's already history there."

"Yup."

"And you knew to get us out of the way of the falling telephone pole, and you knew we would be kidnapped by that ice cream lady?"

"Well, I didn't know exactly what would happen. I only knew an accident would happen during the parade, and that I would have to save the both of you. But things have changed, now; even  _I_  didn't know someone else came from the future to kidnap you in an ice cream truck. For all intents and purposes my mission was just to prevent your untimely deaths at the moment the telephone pole fell, and we thought that was a pure accident. Now, it's looking more like sabotage, and I suspect this woman was behind that, too. I need to learn who she is and stop her, or she'll just try to attack President Flynn again."

Phineas looked thoughtful, then he turned enthusiastic. "Cool! Hey Ferb, you know what this means? I'm gonna be President someday! How awesome is that!?" Ferb returned a high-five, but PJ quickly spoiled their fun.

"I never said it was going to be you," he informed them flatly.

"But you just said, 'President Flynn!' Ferb was born in England! He can't be President, it says in the Constitution that the President has to be born in the US!" Phineas said. "It has to be me!"

"Guess again," PJ said, turning to look at Isabella. Phineas and Ferb turned too, looking astonished.

"Me?" Isabella asked after looking at the other three, confused. " _I'm_  the future President?"

"How is it her?" Phineas asked. "I thought you said you were here to protect the future President, and so far, you've only been protecting me and Ferb! That doesn't make sense! Why would you be protecting us if it wasn't me?"

PJ sighed, growing weary of explaining. "Because you are immediate family to her, and the secret service protects the family of the POTUS, too."

Phineas looked at Ferb. "Uh, sorry PJ, but you must have your facts wrong," Phineas said. "Isabella isn't our sister. She's just our friend; we're not actually part of her family. Her last name is Garcia-Shapiro."

"It is  _now,_ " PJ replied. "In  _your_ present. In the future, she changes her name some time before she gets elected." Around the room, everyone uttered a startled gasp as what he was saying clicked. Everyone except Phineas, that is.

"Changes her name to what,  _Isabella Flynn?_ " Phineas asked critically. "Now why would she do that?"

"Think about it," PJ offered.

It took a minute. Phineas' face turned slowly from defensive to shocked as he came to realize what causes people, particularly women, to change their last name when they get older. There was only one reason, and it was so  _obvious,_  he didn't know how he missed it before.

But was it right? Phineas thought back to the solstice only weeks ago, back to a moment in time he'd almost forgotten: stranded on a tiny island with no hope of escape. He repeated in his mind the words Isabella had said.  _That's not the Phineas that I fell in—to this situation with._  Had she almost said something else?

Then he remembered the confusing moment they'd had when they were building the Fireside Girl Marionette.  _Are you ready to take the next step?_  He'd asked.  _Oh, Phineas, yes! I've been right here in front of you all along just waiting for you to—oh, wait; you were talking about the puppet, weren't you?_  Of course he was, but what was she talking about? Did he finally now know?

He remembered earlier this morning, how she'd worried so much when he and Ferb were almost crushed by the falling telephone pole, how she'd hugged him and held him so tight he could hardly breathe—only to turn around and offer Ferb a polite 'nice to see you' even though he'd been in an equal amount of mortal peril. But that didn't mean—did it?

Slowly, Phineas turned to Isabella, and he saw her in a strange new light. Her hair shimmered and her skin glowed. He caught her eyes and she looked away quickly, blushing; but ever so slightly they glanced back to meet his. Even in the muted light, he saw them sparkling like fireworks.

"I-Isa-" he tried to say, but suddenly he found his throat very dry. He forced down a swallow and tried again. "Isabella, I—know this sounds crazy, but—in the future, do we get— _married?_ " He almost whispered the word.

Before anyone could react, PJ threw up his hands in rapture. "Thank goodness! I almost thought I was gonna have to spell it out for him!" He let his eyes fall back down from the heavens to look at the red-head. "Man, for such a smart kid, you sure are dense!"


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Headquarters, Department of Homeland Security  
Washington, D. C.  
July 15, 2049

"You  _told them_  they were going to be married?" The interrogator shot the prisoner an infuriated look. "That's a serious breach in protocol! You are not supposed to tell anybody important details about their future!"

"Technically, I didn't  _tell_  them," the prisoner tactfully replied. "I may have hinted at it, but it was necessary nonetheless. To help them understand the full scope of the situation. I wouldn't have been able to achieve full cooperation without it. And with the assassin still on the loose, it was a risk I chose to take." The prisoner smiled at the memory. "It paid off, too. I talked with the young President Flynn a little while after, and she said that it was inevitable—someone was going to tell him eventually. As a matter of fact, she told me that she didn't see any other way he'd ever come around to noticing her, oblivious as he was to her—charms. She was grateful I told him because she couldn't bring herself to. In that sense, I ascertained their marriage, even if it was by pure luck."

"She told you that?" the lawyer asked over her high-tech audio recorder. "That's very mature for a young girl to say right after the boy she likes finds out about it."

"She didn't tell me that right away," the prisoner recognized, "it was a little later that day. In my defense, I thought he knew that she had feelings for him. Even in the space of maybe a few hours with the two, I already could see that she obviously liked him. You could see it from the way President Flynn was always looking at him, always fixing her hair or straightening her skirt or adjusting her bow. You know how impressive a character Mr. Flynn is; I assumed he'd figured it out, brain like his, and was just too young to know what to do about it. The last worry on my mind was that he had  _no_  idea whatsoever!"

"What happened then?"

The prisoner took a sip of water from the glass that had been provided and continued his story.

* * *

Danville, USA  
July 4, 2014

"If this is a joke, someone please tell me now," Phineas requested, looking at the others.

"Do I look like I would joke about something like this?" PJ asked in a serious tone.

Silence fell. Phineas' eyes darted back and forth from Isabella to PJ to Ferb back to Isabella. She looked horrified, her face pale white, with hands covering her mouth. Ironically it was Ferb who found a way to break the quiet.

"Perhaps we should head back to the park," he suggested.

"Yes," PJ breathed. "Yes we should. C'mon you guys." He led the way out, and they followed him onto the sidewalk. PJ had already assumed his regular crouching stance before they joined him to walk back to the park.

Phineas gave a final look back inside the truck. "Are you coming, Isabella?" he called.

The poor girl stood rooted to the spot, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. She hadn't moved an inch. Now with the others all waiting, she was able to put a shaky leg in front of the other and come to the door. Instinctively Phineas offered his hand to help her down and she took it without thought before dropping onto the sidewalk. Then they both looked at each other, then at their still conjoined hands, and immediately snapped their arms back to their sides before looking pointedly in any other direction.

PJ resisted the urge to roll his eyes as the two deliberately took spots on opposite sides of Ferb and began to walk. It was immensely awkward how they seemed to make the extra effort to remain as far apart as possible, and the blank look on Ferb's expressionless face showed it, forced as he was now into the position of being middle-man. They proceeded silently, each left to their own thoughts. Phineas was trying to use so much space that he was encroaching on PJ's lane of the walkway, and it only got more awkward when Phineas accidentally stepped on PJ's webbed foot. He received a sharp hiss for it, and his reflexive "sorry" was the only word spoken for several minutes.

The uncomfortable march was mercifully short as they hadn't actually covered a lot of distance in the ice cream truck. They found the barbeque in more or less the same shape they'd left it: cheerful, festive, and beckoning for fun. It at least brought Phineas out of his reflective mood. He put on a smile and said, "You know what, guys? I think it's time to kick this picnic up a notch!"

He turned to the others. "PJ, do you want to help us out?"

"Grdrdrdrdrdrd," the platypus responded, looking wary.

"It's alright, Ferb and I thought of that, and we had an idea. Put these on," Phineas instructed as Ferb extracted a fake mustache, wig, and overalls from the space behind his back. "This way you'll have a disguise and nobody will get suspicious, so that you can help us on our project too! Now, we're gonna need a power drill and some pickle juice. Can you handle that?" PJ accepted the disguise in his jaws and pattered away, presumably to change in a more private location.

"Ferb, you grab the wood-and-steel fusing tool and some bobby pins." Ferb exited in like manner.

"Isabella," Phineas said, but as soon as he turned to face her, he deflated. "Um…" She waited for orders, but Phineas couldn't seem to do any more than look at his shoes at the moment. Once he opened his mouth and almost spoke, but he quickly shut it just as fast.

"I'll go get the troops and build a stage," she suggested.

"Okay," Phineas agreed. "You do that."

It couldn't get any more awkward, and when it became apparent neither wanted to say any more, Isabella turned and left. It taxed her to walk away from Phineas like that, but she didn't know what else to do. Lifting her eyes to the sky, a round cloud and a triangular cloud nestled cozily together, immune to all else. Without warning a single tear ran down her face, and Isabella began to sing softly—whether only in her mind or in reality, it didn't matter; she sang.

 _He knows, he finally knows._  
Finally, after all this time,  
The truth at last has come out to shine  
That the only desire of mine,  
Is to be with his unique, sublime  
Yet perfect personality so fine.  
Yes, he knows.

 _He's aware. He's cognizant of the fact_  
That I love him, but does he love me back?  
He hasn't said, is there something I lack?  
Someone tell me, please, if I'm on the wrong track,  
'Cause if he doesn't, maybe I'll have to pack  
Up and leave with my lone heart-strung knapsack,  
Now that he knows.

 _Oh, Phineas, is it possible_  
That you do not share my feelings?  
I know your head is shaped like a triangle,  
But all I see's a broken heart that's bleeding.  
No, I can't give up hope! Not yet,  
I still see the light at the end with a wedding.  
No matter how hard it gets with life's many regrets  
Just talk to me, you can tell me anything,  
Because you know.

_Yeah, oh yeah, you know!  
That's right; he knows._

Isabella assembled her troop, wondering what would happen when she next saw Phineas.

* * *

Balthazar Horowitz stood in line outside a row of portable outdoor restrooms. Along came a platypus which entered an adjacent porta-potty; only seconds later an odd looking fellow with teal skin, a fake mustache, an unusual hairstyle, and overalls emerged from the same outhouse. Confused, Balthazar looked up and said, "Hey, why am I waiting in line when there's a vacant one right there?"

* * *

When PJ returned, his jaw dropped in astonishment. "What is that?"

"A fashion runway," Phineas declared, pausing to admire the gang's work. He looked back at his new friend. "How's the fit?"

"Well," PJ said, inspecting the overalls, "it's a little hot, and my tail hurts; I don't understand why you humans put up with wearing extra fur. Are you sure this disguise will work?"

Before Phineas could answer, Buford and Baljeet arrived with shovels in hand and hard hats on head. "Who's the new guy?" Buford asked.

"Does that answer your question?" Phineas replied. "Baljeet and Buford, this is PJ; PJ, this is Baljeet and Buford."

"Hello."

"S'up? We finished hardening the cement," Buford reported. "It took a lot of work getting it that hard."

"Buford," Baljeet patiently explained, "I already told you, the cement would have hardened on its own. You did not need to pound on it to compact it any further!"

"You just have to suck the fun out of everything, don't you?"

"That's good news, guys," said Phineas. "Everything's almost ready. PJ, could you come help me with putting in these screws?"

"Sure," said the platypus incognito. He followed Phineas to the back of the stage.

"I just had a hard time reaching the high ones," Phineas said, "and I don't know where Ferb put the ladder. I figured you'd be able to get them if you sat on my shoulders. Can you do that?"

"Yeah," PJ said. "No problem."

"Great!" Phineas bent down and the platypus agilely climbed up.

"How'd you guys build this so fast?" PJ asked.

"Well, we had the parts delivered and then Ferb sorted and organized everything and Isabella and the Fireside Girls pitched in and—."

"Whoa, slow down, cowboy!" PJ cut him off. "I can hardly keep up! I didn't want your whole life story! Screws, please."

Phineas passed them up. "You know, I'm glad you're here to help us build this, PJ. It's kind of like having Perry here. We never get to build stuff with Perry, it seems like he's always off doing whatever platypuses do."

"You and Ferb care about Perry a lot, don't you?" PJ asked.

"We sure do. A pet platypus is a pet platypus, but we couldn't have asked for a better one than Perry."

Phineas paused, for PJ had begun drilling and it wasn't prudent to converse over the noise. After driving as many screws as he could reach, he gestured that he was ready for Phineas to move to the next section.

"So," PJ asked in the lapse in noise, "how are you handling the news about Isabella?"

Phineas looked back at his shoes. "I don't know," he responded. "I mean, now that I think about it, it makes sense. We've been best friends for as long as I can remember." PJ began screwing again, and Phineas used the time to compose his thoughts.

"I guess it's just weird to think about," he continued when PJ had finished the second section. "Getting married is so far away when there's so much to do today! I guess I just never thought that far into the future. Besides, how am I even supposed to know if she likes me? I mean, I know she likes me; I meant, how do I know for sure she  _likes_  me? You know, the like that means  _like;_  not the like that means like. What if she doesn't like me because she's only supposed to like me in the future and now that we know the future it's going to be really awkward and she won't like me anymore and we don't get married and mess the future up? We are just kids, after all." The drilling platypus didn't have to see his face to tell how concerned he was.

PJ listened carefully to what the boy said before responding. "I'm sorry I put you in a difficult position," he said. "This is why we aren't supposed to talk too much about the future."

"What does being married to her make me, anyway? The First Man?"

"Actually, the husband of the President of the United States is called the First Gentleman. I know it sounds weird, but it's right."

He stopped to finish the final section of screws before continuing. "Listen. Even if it's awkward, you're gonna have to push through it and talk to her. For all you know, she's probably just as worried about the exact same things."

"But I don't know what to say!" Phineas exclaimed.

"You said you're best friends, right?" Phineas nodded. "Start with that. Besides, I haven't popped out of existence or anything, so we haven't messed the future up yet!"

The young genius took a deep breath. "Okay," he said, focusing his eyes. "Carpe diem."

"That's the spirit." PJ leapt off the boy's shoulders. "You'll do fine. Trust me."

* * *

Isabella had been unusually quiet today, and the girls noticed. Nobody said anything while they finished putting up the curtains for the stage, but when that task was completed their curiosity got the better of them.

"What troubles thee, fearless leader?" voiced Gretchen, and the others quickly gathered to listen and provide support.

"It's Phineas," Isabella confided upon seeing nobody was nearby to eavesdrop. "He finally knows."

A gasp rippled through the group. "The Nose knows?!"

"Don't call him that ever again, Addyson."

"Sorry," the wise-cracker said. "Couldn't pass up the opportunity." A few others giggled.

"So what's wrong?" Milly asked. "Don't tell us he turned you down!"

Isabella sighed. "Well, not exactly. It's more like things just got really awkward and complicated and now he isn't talking to me."

"You mean he's avoiding you?"

Isabella shook her head. "No; he isn't talking to me as in he pulls a Ferb when I'm around."

"Ohhh!" The girls nodded in understanding. All together their countenances went from concerned to relieved. "You actually had us worried there for a second!"

"This is serious!" Isabella chided. "My chance of being with Phineas is in peril! Why are you all acting like you know something I don't?"

A few of the others snickered. "Chief, there's nothing for you to worry about," Gretchen explained. "It's obvious that Phineas is in shock. Love shock."

"Love shock? Did you seriously just call it that?"

"Gretchen's right!" Ginger squeaked. "We learned all about it from getting our 'How Boys Think' Patch!"

"I don't remember getting that patch," Isabella said.

"You were sick that day."

Isabella cleared her head. "Okay. What do I do?"

Gretchen took the troop leader by the arm. "First of all, you have to give him some space. You don't want to be all in his face or you'll push him away, but don't give him too much space either, or he'll get comfortable and never commit to anything. You have to give him just the right amount of space."

"How much is the right amount of space?" Isabella asked.

The girls ignored her inquiry. "The next thing you want to do is never engage him in conversation," Addyson expounded. "He's gonna need time to come to accept you. If you find yourselves together, look for an escape route right away! Prematurely talking to him will only confuse him and make him take longer to sort out his feelings for you. You have to be strong and hold out to the end!"

"That sounds counterintuitive," Isabella thought aloud. "It seems like shutting off communication is the last thing I should do!"

"The last thing you should do," Ginger continued as if Isabella hadn't even spoken, "is talk to him. After you've followed steps one and two, this is the most important and final step! Go talk to him, and he'll be like putty in your hands!"

Isabella looked perplexed. "So what you're saying is, after making an effort to not talk to him, I  _should_  go talk to him?"

The girls nodded as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Look, all you girls did was give me vague and conflicting advice! That didn't even help me at all!"

"Well, no one said it was an exact science. You'll do just fine, Chief!" Gretchen smiled confidently. Holly gave her a friendly elbow in the ribcage. "Ow!" she yelped, grimacing. "Oh, and one more thing. The troop and I were wondering," she began with an encompassing wave of her hand. The group hunched over in giggly anticipation as she did so.

"Yes?" Isabella prompted.

"The troop and I were wondering," Gretchen carefully articulated, "when you do talk to Phineas, can we—I mean, would it be okay if…" She leaned over and whispered in her ear.

Isabella exploded. "NO, YOU CANNOT WATCH!"

"Okay, okay!" She held up her hands in surrender. "Just thought we'd ask—after all, we could keep Irving away…"

* * *

Phineas stood on the fully completed stage with a microphone held to his mouth. "Ladies and Gentlemen," he began, "Laddies and lasses-ies, welcome to the first annual P-n-F Fourth of July Celebration Swimsuit Contest of Swimwear! Brought to you by Random Swimwear!" Almost instantly, it seemed, a crowd started to gather around the stage to watch.

"Kickin' off this year's contest, we're privileged to have this year's swimwear modeled by none other than—that's right, you guessed it—all forty-three Presidents of the United States!" Someone in the audience questioned him. "That's correct, forty-three; remember, Grover Cleveland was president twice."

Phineas put on an enthusiastic smile. "But before we get to the highlight of our show, we're going to start with a special reading performance. Today celebrates the birth of our independence as a nation, which happened with the signing of the Declaration of Independence July 4th, 1776. To honor that pivotal moment in history, please put your hands together for Baljeet Tjindler, who will be reading the Declaration for us, and for Ferb Fletcher, who will be translating, since nobody seems to understand what it says."

The audience cheered and applauded as Baljeet and Ferb appeared on stage. Phineas placed the microphone on a stand between them, then exited behind the curtains.

Baljeet cleared his throat. "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

He paused, and Ferb translated. "We're writing the Declaration of Independence," he stated.

Baljeet continued. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness."

"People deserve to be free, so we're making our own government," Ferb summarized.

"Prudence, indeed," read Baljeet, "will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes, and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

"You have to have a really good reason to make your own government," said Ferb.

Baljeet, who was really getting into it, now read with gusto. "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."

Ferb explained. "We're gonna revolt, Mother England!"

The crowd cheered as if expecting it to be over, and Phineas entered the stage again. "Thank you, thank you!" he said. "Let's hear it for Baljeet and Ferb!" The crowd applauded and whistled.

"But we did not even make it all the way through the second paragraph!" Baljeet told Phineas out of the corner of his mouth as he waved. Phineas shooed him off.

"Now, without further ado, the moment you've all been waiting for is here!" Phineas announced over the microphone. "The fashion show! But before we open up the runway, allow me to introduce the three judges that will be judging our models and their fashion. First up: he's cute, he's tough, he's got an evil alien for a nemesis; can I get a warm welcome for Meap!"

Meap waved from his seat with his ever adorable, "Meap!" The audience cheered loud as ever.

"Our second judge hails from the City Hall where he works as a tour guide to help uninformed citizens in need, but most people know him as Don!"

The second judge gave a fancy twirl of the hands to the audience.

"And last but not least," introduced Phineas, "she's spunky and sassy with a sharp sense of fashion; the self-proclaimed goth, Vanessa Doofenshmirtz!"

Vanessa acknowledged the cheering audience with a simple, "hey, how's it going?"

"There you have it, folks," Phineas addressed the crowd, "now I'm gonna turn the mic over to our judges; let the contest begin!" The microphone sank into the stage and Phineas departed to the loud applause.

Don the tour guide spoke first as the curtain parted. "Our first model is an animatronic robot of the first President of the United States, the one affectionately called by many the Father of the Country, George Washington. Here comes George down the catwalk now, and it looks like he's sporting the modest gentleman look."

From behind the curtain, the first robot emerged with a long powdered wig and a prominent nose. The George Washington robot wore a loose-fitting tunic of white and gray. The long sleeves had neatly pressed cuffs.

"Wearing a swim garment that literally looks like it's from the eighteenth century," Vanessa took over, "the leg breeches and covered arms bring us back to a simpler age when it was improper to have more than the hands and face exposed and reminds us all why nobody has worn that stuff in over two hundred years."

"Let's hear what Mr. Washington has to say," Don verbalized.

The robot paced the length of the walkway and posed. "I cannot tell a lie, my swimsuit is too bodalicious for you!"

It went quiet briefly as the crowd looked stunned. "I don't know what to make of that," Don commented. "What do you have to say, Meap?"

Meap thought for a moment. "Meap."

"Couldn't put it any better myself," replied Don. George Washington turned and made his way back to the curtain, leaving the crowd cheering. "There you have it, everyone. George Washington! Up next, the great lawyer and statesman from Boston; get ready to have your socks knocked off by our second president, John Adams!"

PJ watched contentedly from backstage with Phineas, Ferb, and their other friends, never ceasing to be amazed. It was a chance to watch history with his own eyes. He'd heard the stories about how they used to seize every day with a new bold project, of course, but he never imagined that the projects they tackled were of  _this_  scale. They had built all these robots of presidents past and present along with the stage and organized a fashion show for swimwear—all in the course of an afternoon! What really amazed him is that they weren't doing it to make money, or to show off, or anything like that. They were just having fun, being kids. Phineas was all over the place; now sharing a joke with Ferb who was up in the rafters operating the lights, now helping Baljeet and the Abraham Lincoln robot find a missing sandal, now breaking up an argument between Buford and Isabella regarding whether a lime-green top or a plum-colored top better matched Woodrow Wilson's swim trunks. Under Phineas' leadership, everything went smoothly.

Phineas had led the way in accepting PJ into the circle of friends, too. They'd all accepted him right away; except Buford, who was briefly skeptical when he first noticed the false mustache. ("I don't know any other kids that have a mustache!") Phineas had even given him responsibility over keeping the presidential models in sequential order and final checking that the robots were fully functioning and clothed properly (the James Madison robot had tried to use its socks as a hat) before sending them out on the runway. Despite technically still being on a mission to be protecting them, PJ allowed himself to relax as he worked with the kids; and to his surprise, he discovered that for the first time in a long time he was having fun.

"Hey, PJ!" Phineas shouted from the opposite end of the curtain, rousing him from his thoughts. "Did you get Isabella's order for three more blue towels?"

"They're on their way!" He called back, grinning at the boy's contagious enthusiasm. He turned back out to watch the robot of John F. Kennedy take the runway.

"And here's JFK," Don the tour guide was announcing, "the beloved president whose time in office ended prematurely at the hands of fate and an assassin's bullet."

JFK the robot strutted before the crowd before pulling its shirt over its synthetic shoulders, unveiling a masculine torso with some rather well-defined muscles. "Ask not what your swimsuit can do for you," the robot uttered, "rather, ask what you can do for your swimsuit." JFK gave a final flex and about faced.

"Are you alright, Vanessa?" Don asked his fellow judge.

"Wha? Oh, yeah, yeah!" Vanessa breathed, putting her eyeballs back while fanning herself with her hand. "That was just a—um, good swimsuit, is all. Very fashionable."

"Meap," Meap commented.

"Well, whatever it was," said Don, looking over the whistling audience, "the crowd sure liked it!"

* * *

"So the scuba diver says, 'that's just crabby!'" Jeremy finished, and he joined Candace in a round of laughter.

"Crabby!" Candace repeated. "That is so funny!" The two had been spending the afternoon together; strolling around the park, taking in the sights, participating in some of the games. It had been pleasant, but at that moment Candace noticed the sounds of a gathered crowd. One look was all she needed for her busting reflex to activate.

"Do you see that?" she asked her boyfriend. "Phineas and Ferb must have built that stage, it wasn't here earlier! And what are they doing?"

Jeremy looked. "It appears that they're hosting a swimsuit contest. Cool! You wanna go watch?"

"More like, I wanna go bust!" Candace said, stomping off.

"There she goes again," he said, smiling to himself. "Hey, where's Suzy?"

Meanwhile, Candace already had her phone pressed to her ear. "Mom!" she said, loudly to be heard over the noise of the people in the background. "Are you and Dad at the park yet?"

"Yes, dear, we've been at the pie-eating contest," Linda said, a dreamy look overcoming her face. "So many pies! Blueberry, Raspberry, Apple, Key Lime, Doonkelberry, Cher—."

In a whoosh Candace was already at her mother's side, cutting her off. "You've gotta come see! Phineas and Ferb built a stage and they're holding a swimsuit contest!" She grabbed her mother's arm and began to drag her along.

"But, what about the pie?"

* * *

Three rows of swimsuit-spangled Presidents stood on bleachers atop the stage, waiting for the winner's name to be read. Phineas stood at the microphone with an envelope in hand.

"Before we announce this year's winner," he said, "I just wanted to thank you all for coming today! Now, the winner of today's Fourth of July Celebration Swimsuit Contest of Swimwear (brought to you by Random Swimwear!), is—."

From the side, Ferb thumped out a drumroll on a full drumset. Phineas ripped open the envelope and looked at the ballot inside.

"And the winner is—oh, you have got to be kidding me. The winner is President William Howard Taft! I don't know how that man could win a swimsuit contest, but the ballots never lie!"

The Taft robot, standing behind Phineas and to his right, was overtaken with surprise and leapt for joy. "I don't believe it! I won!" The corpulent robot danced exultantly, showered by red, white, and blue confetti. Everyone clapped heartily for a full minute until the curtains closed and Phineas excused the audience.

* * *

"Good work, girls," Isabella congratulated backstage, "on yet another successful Phineas and Ferb project."

"Frog alert!" Milly whispered from the rear, frantically. ('Frog alert' was code for 'a boy one of them likes is headed this way!' for, after all, frogs are the symbol of a Prince waiting to blossom with a kiss.) The girls turned and saw Phineas approaching. What was unusual, however, was that Ferb wasn't with him.

"Hey guys," he said a little nervously, with a heavy glance toward Isabella. "Can I talk to Isabella? Um, alone?"

The girls giggled uncontrollably, making the solemn Phineas look even more out of place. Gretchen gave Isabella a soft push to the front and led the rest of the troop away.

"Hey," Phineas said once they were in the clear.

"Hey," Isabella echoed.

"So…" Phineas rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the stage.

"So…" Isabella wrapped a hand around her elbow and looked at the ground.

Phineas snapped to attention. "Did you say something?"

"What? No, I didn't say anything." It went quiet again as the two looked for the words they wanted to say.

Phineas thought hard. What do girls like to hear? Compliments! He should give Isabella a compliment!

"Nice—" he began, looking for something to say, but when nothing came to mind, he panicked. "—Stage. Nice stage." Inwardly, Phineas slapped himself.

"Oh, thanks," Isabella said. "The girls and I are getting pretty good at building them."

"Yeah," Phineas agreed. He looked Isabella over from head to toe, looking for something to compliment. "I like your—" he tried again, holding the 'your' until he had a word ready. He was about to say shoes, but then again, did he really like her shoes? They looked like they were neatly kept and all, but it wasn't like he'd ever tried them, so how could he truthfully say he liked them? His eyes fell upon her hair. Did he like her hair? As much as the next person's, he supposed. It was black, and long. Did he like black and long? Suddenly he didn't know.

Isabella blinked at Phineas' drawn out syllable, it having dawned on her that Phineas was trying to give her a compliment.  _Oh no! He can't think of anything to compliment me on! I must look hideous from toiling on the project!_  Isabella made a mental note to check a mirror the first chance she got.

Phineas was running out of time and breath. His 'your' was almost spent. He had to say something! "…Urrrrr—anus. Yes, I like Uranus. A lot." Like an avalanche, the words he'd just spoken came crashing down on him.  _Oh, no,_ he thought desperately. _No, no, no! Why did that have to be the first thing that popped into my head? I like Uranus? That is literally the worst possible thing I could have said right there!_

He moved quickly to clarify his intentions. "The planet, I mean! You know, Uranus—the seventh planet from the sun? It's a fascinating one, made up of mostly frozen ammonia and methane! And its biggest moon is Miranda." As Phineas put on what he hoped was a convincing smile to cover his tracks, he made a mental note to look up whoever discovered and named Uranus so he could know who to blame for everlastingly rendering that planet the "butt" of all jokes, pun intended.

On her end, Isabella didn't care Phineas was tailspinning—she was too worried about herself. She'd inevitably reanalyze every detail of this conversation for hours on end in the near future, deciding ultimately that Phineas' foot-in-mouth comment was cute, but now wasn't the time for that. She couldn't scare him away! Taking a quick moment to compose herself, she calmly responded. "I've always really liked Saturn, myself. It's so pretty, with all its rings. But, I like Uranus too, Phineas."

Phineas' mind was racing. This was turning into a total disaster. But PJ told him he had to push past the awkwardness, so that's what he did. He stood up straight, looked into her eyes, and opened his mouth.

"Isabella, I don't know if you know this or not about me, but I'm not the most—what would you call it?— _romantically inclined_  person."

"No!" Isabella mock gasped.

The boy failed to catch the sarcasm. "It's true," he assured her. "I don't know if you're in to romance and that kind of stuff; but I know most girls are, and seeing as you're a girl, I'm guessing you probably do, you know, like romance?"

Isabella wore a funny look, like Phineas was a small child who had just figured out that two plus two equals four and believed he was actually enlightening her by telling her it was so. "I've thought about it once or twice," she sardonically understated, with a hint of playfulness as she watched her beloved squirm.

"I see," he answered. "I'm not very romantically inclined; I mean, I guess I just said that, didn't I?" Phineas took a deep breath. "Look, Isabella, I don't know how to say this, but—I guess I'm sorry about earlier. I don't even know why I'm sorry, I just am. What PJ said about us just really confused—."

A delightful shiver tingled Isabella's spine as she laid a silencing finger across his lips. "It's okay, Phineas. You don't have to be sorry for anything."

Phineas pulled her hand from his away from his mouth and lowered it to his chest, causing that shiver to linger. "Are you sure? You looked so scared back there when PJ said we were going to be—to be…" He couldn't bring himself to say the word. They were standing so close now she could feel his breath on her face.

Deciding there was no turning back now, Isabella Garcia-Shapiro bravely squared her shoulders. "Married?" she offered. Phineas nodded, then remembered he was still holding her hand betwixt his two. To her delight, he didn't let go. That fact gave her the courage she needed to do what she did next. Timing her movement exactly as he resumed his thought, she gently placed her other hand onto his.

"Even if that really is the future, I just don't want it to—" Phineas had begun. Her touch stopped him. Looking down to see her hands holding his, he paused—as if he briefly lost his train of thought, but quickly regained it. "—You know, affect our friendship." He almost didn't have to finish the sentence. It couldn't be any clearer to the both of them that it wouldn't.

Isabella willed her eyes to remain dry. It wasn't that hard, she wanted to stare into that face forever. She simply beamed at him. "Well, you are acting a little more 'romantically inclined' right now."

Phineas broke into a silly grin. "Yes. Yes, I am." Much more at ease now, he returned her gaze. "I bet someday in the future you'll probably be winning that swimsuit contest," he thought out loud. "You are beautiful."

Blushing, Isabella moved in closer—ever so slightly—as time crawled to a stop.

* * *

Most of the audience had departed in search of other things to do. From the sky above, a helicopter dropped a winch, picked up the stage along with everything on it, and flew off. "Thanks for the stage, boys!" a man in khakis and wearing a camera slung around his neck was saying. Ferb appeared at Phineas' side, opposite a bright-eyed Isabella. "Now I can finally fulfill my lifelong dream of taking the first group photo of all the US Presidents together!"

"You're welcome," Phineas waved as the man got on his bike and rode away. "We were done with it anyways!"

Candace appeared as well, with Linda in tow. "Aha! See, Mom? Proof!"

"Hi, boys," Linda said. Obviously, there was nothing out of the ordinary to be observed.

"Hi Mom! Hi Candace!" Phineas greeted.

"But, but, but," Candace but-butted, "but it was all right here!"

"Are you boys having fun with your Fourth of July?" Linda asked.

"You bet!" Phineas answered, and Ferb nodded.

"That's good to hear." Linda turned to Candace. "Now, I am going back to the pie." Candace slouched over in defeat as she walked past.

PJ arrived to stand beside Ferb. "Hey, where did everything go?"

"If I knew," Candace answered despondently, "I wouldn't be here." With that, she turned and left, too.

Phineas' face brightened with a smile. "Hey, there you are, Perry!"

Perry pattered to the spot Candace had been standing on moments earlier. "You've missed out on an interesting day! We were at the parade, riding a float; and all of a sudden…"

Perry wasn't listening. He had immediately spotted and recognized the platypus conspicuously disguised as a kid standing next to Ferb. The moment he caught the other mammal's eye, Perry glared. "Grdrdrdrdrd."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Location: Classified  
Washington, D. C.  
July 1, 2049

"A special assignment, you say?"

"Yes, that's right. You've done some outstanding field work as an agent, and President Flynn specified that she wanted you to take this mission."

PJ stood stiffly at attention, but on the inside he was burgeoning with excitement. His commander sat behind his desk, sucking the salt from his peanuts and looking the platypus over from head to tail. The commander was not known for being a considerate man; he was only there to do his job. They all were.

Feeling like he was supposed to speak, PJ opened his mouth. "The President requested me, sir?"

The man behind the desk spit a fleck of shell sidelong off the tip of his tongue. "Yup."

The platypus clenched his gut tightly, as that was about the only movement slight enough he could get away with and still release his elation. A special mission! All his hard work was finally paying off; after all this time! It had been what, six years since he'd graduated from OWCA Academy? That was a long time in platypus years. As one of the first animal agents to be accepted to another government agency, he relished the chance to finally prove himself.

Still at attention, PJ said, "It would be an honor to be of service to Madame President."

The commander was watching him closely. "Good," he finally said. Standing, he reached for his electronic tablet, which looked like a thin square slab of transparent glass with a handle until it lit with information at his touch. He flicked his finger lazily across the device while sitting back down. "I assume you are familiar with Operation Flashpoint?"

"I am," PJ responded. "It's an important part of the history of the secret service. The first mission to go back in time to protect the President from an assassin. Ricardo James Louis attempted to assassinate President Clayton using a homebuilt time machine in 2037, and Operation Flashpoint was the code name for the mission to prevent him from doing so. All of which is classified, of course, to prevent copycats."

The commander merely grunted, hardly impressed. "And it was the only time someone has attempted to use time travel to access the President, or Future-President as the case may be. However, new developments have come to light, and we've just learned that the past is once again being manipulated. We don't know how yet, but the First Gentleman and his step-brother are in danger. Mr. Phineas Flynn and Mr. Ferb Fletcher will be killed in a parade accident July 4, 2014 at precisely 10:44 am. Obviously, if this were to happen, it would have severe consequences on the present and drastically rewrite our history. Your mission is to prevent this. You are to go back in time to prevent the accident from happening. All protocol for time travel is in effect. The code name for your mission is Operation Blackscorch. Is your mission clear?"

PJ nodded. "Yes, sir."

"You will have thirty-six hours to prepare," the commander said, leaning back in his chair. "Remember, you aren't allowed to take anything with you, as the hazard of future technology being left behind is too great. Also, we have already collaborated with the historical department; their hackers have inserted cryptographic sequences into pertinent government records from the past to assist you with acquiring resources and to keep the authorities off your back. You'll have to memorize these access codes. In case you need anything, give them these codes. They'll check it against their records and find your presence is authorized, even if they don't know how. Just try not to make too big a splash." The agent saluted in understanding before crisply spinning on his heels and marching off.

Once he was alone, the man deftly executed a series of commands into his electronic tablet, and it transformed into a small cell phone in his hands. He quickly punched in a number for a secure line and waited while it rang.

"Hello?" The President's Chief of Staff answered.

"Sir, we have assigned the agent to Operation Blackscorch," the commander reported. "The boys are in the hands of one of our best. History is secured."

"Good work. The President will be happy to hear this." And the conversation ended, for they were both busy men.

Far away, another person was listening as well, having long since bugged the offices and communications of nearly all high-ranking officials in the Capitol. The blonde haired woman smiled as she sat alone in her office and steepled her fingers. It was all going perfectly according to plan.

* * *

Danville, USA  
July 4, 2014

Perry had honed his instincts through years of rigorous training, and now they were screaming at him. Something was very wrong. He could see right through the phony disguise plain as day, and seeing another platypus standing beside the boys—standing beside  _his_  boys—alarmed him. That wasn't all, though. What really set Perry on edge was seeing  _who_ the other platypus was. There is nothing quite like one particular feeling—the feeling of seeing yourself. Not in a mirror; actually seeing yourself, three-dimensionally, as if you were outside your body. It is remarkably startling. That was what Perry felt now. It was unmistakable. Somehow, the other platypus  _was him._

It was not the first time Perry had had this peculiar feeling this summer. The memory of the last time he'd come face-to-face with his very likeness was one never to be forgotten, but at least this time the other platypus was not a cyborg. Yet it was enough to set his nerves on edge, and Perry felt his fur ruffle.

Phineas had continued speaking, oblivious to the death glare his pet had plastered onto his face. "And we had a presidential swimsuit contest with all the robots, and then you arrived!" he was saying, smiling all along. "What a fun day! I think we can consider this one seized!"

"Does that mean it's time for snacks?" Buford asked. "'Cause I'm starvin'."

Phineas said, "I believe that is the usual pattern."

"Good. C'mon, nerd, I'm gonna introduce you to some 'tato salad!" Buford picked Baljeet up and slung him over his shoulder like a purse in one motion before striding off.

"I hope that this time, you mean that in a way that does not involve shoving my face into it," Baljeet anxiously said.

Phineas, with Ferb and Isabella flanking him, followed, for none of them had eaten yet, and it had been a long day. The children assumed the two platypuses were right behind them, so they happily chatted while they walked toward the food pavilion. However, neither Perry nor PJ had moved.

Perry kept rooted to the spot, never blinking from the platypus that squinted back. Why had this imposter been with his boys? Did the kids even know he was a platypus, or had they fallen for the disguise? Perry had the strangest feeling that as long as this other platypus was around, his boys were not safe. For a moment, the air crackled with electricity as the two sized each other up. Then, almost casually, the imposter shrugged and turned to follow Perry's boys. Big mistake.

Springing from his crouch, Perry tackled his doppelganger at a full speed. The force of the impact knocked PJ clean off his webbed feet, and Perry leapt on top of him, willing to pummel every inch of his body until he learned why this pretender was trying to get close to his owners.

Surprisingly, the other platypus was quick. Perry had only just pulled his fist back when he felt two feet press into his chest, lifting him off the ground and throwing him aside. He landed and took a fighting stance, ready for action.

PJ easily jumped to his feet, a fresh anger burning in his eyes. The two charged again, each diving forward to gain the upper hand. Perry grabbed anywhere he could, nearly managing to catch his foe by the suspenders. But before he had the chance, however, his wrists were jarred as the other mammal brought both elbows up hard, snapping them out of his grip. Perry recovered and sent a knee flying for his ribcage, connecting hard and knocking the wind out of his opponent. The two backed off for a moment, pausing to catch their breath and prepare for the next bout.

An unexpected delay, however, occurred at just that moment. A couple of carefree kids ran past, forcing both to briefly return to their disguises; Perry crouching like a mindless pet, PJ whistling innocently with both hands shoved deep in his overall pockets. Just as quickly, the children were gone, and the combat resumed.

Perry chose an aerial attack this time, sallying forward with a great leaping kick. The kick was skillfully dodged, and Perry had to swiftly counter a kick to the ribcage himself. He cartwheeled backwards to create some space, looking for an opening in his opponent's defenses. There were none, and Perry ducked to the side to dodge a punch thrown at him. Then he saw something. PJ's momentum carried him just a little further than he expected, as if he lost his balance for the briefest moment. Perry instantly realized that PJ's tail was caught inside his trousers, meaning he could no longer use it for balance. Perry made a mental note as he found himself blocking blow after blow from his ferocious foe. For Perry, this was a battle unlike any he had ever fought. He was evenly matched; all his movements seemed to be perfectly anticipated by his enemy, and vice-versa. The rivals lunged forward again, locking hands in struggle like two great bears, pushing, twisting, squeezing and straining to fight for an advantage.

"You are a great fighter," Perry heard the platypus say through gritted teeth. If they weren't so busy fighting, he would have been amazed, but his mind was too preoccupied with focusing on the battle to stop and consider the ramifications of a platypus talking. "Your reputation is well-deserved," PJ continued. Then, to Perry's astonishment, the platypus smiled. He seemed to grow just a little before him, and Perry felt his footing slide an inch. "Now we'll see who's truly better!"

There was an audible crunch as Perry felt the other platypus contract his muscles, and suddenly Perry felt a new wave of strength surge from his opponent. He took a step back and lowered his center of gravity, fighting with all his might, but it was no use. PJ raised his elbows and pushed down harder, forcing Perry a step further back.

"I am stronger than you," PJ grunted as he pushed Perry back yet another step, "faster than you, even smarter than you! I was chosen because I was the specimen of a perfect platypus, because I had the greatest potential!" Perry was overwhelmingly forced onto one knee, sweating now as he gave his all. Grunting louder, the platypus shoved Perry hard, practically tossing him into the trunk of a tree. Now, he was out of space to backpedal, shut off from any possible retreat.

"You were the greatest OWCA agent in your day," the platypus said, backing off slightly to look him over. "Leaving a legacy I had to live up to. Everyone at the academy was always comparing me to you: Agent P! The great Perry the Platypus! Now, we finally get to find out which platypus is better!" There was a burning intensity in his eyes, and Perry looked desperately for an escape.

Whether by pure luck or as a testament to the fortuitous foresight of the Organization Without a Cool Acronym in meeting the lair entrance needs of its agents, Perry saw a hidden switch in the branch directly above him. He turned back just in time to see his opponent cocking his fist, and reacted. In one swift motion, he expertly launched himself up for the branch, sling-shotting himself around it to shoot his momentum back at the other platypus, while simultaneously hitting the portal hatch. A small slot opened in the trunk of the tree. He wrapped his legs around PJ's torso and leaned backward, falling into the lair chute and pulling him together with him.

Down, down they tumbled. Even until they landed in Perry's lair, surrounded by all sorts of spy-gear. Perry, now with home-field advantage and the element of surprise, was able to wrestle his foe to the ground, but PJ seemed to truly possess superior strength and quickly rolled on top of him. Perry couldn't stop himself from getting pinned, and was feeling nearly sapped of energy. Then, an idea hit him.

"I am the greatest platypus to ever live! I have proven it!" The platypus laughed now, a crazed look in his eyes. With his last bit of strength, Perry reached behind the manic grin and tickled that sweet little spot every platypus has.

A sudden jolt shot through PJ's body, making him freeze. It was an involuntary reflex, uncontrollable. Although his tail was presently pinned down by the pants he was wearing, the fabric was nowhere near strong enough to hold back its sudden flexion, and it tore through the pants, leaving him momentarily stunned.

Perry seized his opportunity. Unresisted now, he reached behind the platypus and grabbed the garment by the tear. He yanked up, hard, giving his opponent a merciless wedgie. PJ squeaked in an unnatural high pitch, indicating the wedgie did its job. Perry rolled out from under him and quickly slapped on a pair of handcuffs before collapsing onto his red chair in exhaustion.

* * *

"Holy macaroni! Agent P, what is going on here?"

Major Monogram had just arrived at the lair to find Carl and Agent P standing guard over an additional (no longer disguised) platypus strapped to a chair. Carl rose to answer.

"Sir, Agent P found this platypus spying on his host family. He detained him and brought him here, that's why I called you down."

"Great googley moogley!" Monogram uttered in response. "This must be another one of Doofenshmirtz's tricks!"

"Mmm! Hrrrrmmm!" PJ groaned through the tape smeared across his lower mandible.

"Carl, why is this platypus gagged?" Monogram asked.

"To keep him from talking, sir."

"Now that's just silly. Everybody knows animals don't talk. Except for parrots, of course. Here, I'll just…" Monogram reached out and ripped the tape off in one pull.

"Ow!" PJ yelped. "You didn't have to yank it off!"

Monogram jumped back in amazement. "Goodness! Carl, don't scare me like that with your ventriloquist pranks! I almost thought that platypus said that!"

"It wasn't me, sir!" Carl shot back. "He really can talk!"

"Yes," PJ said, smirking at the mustached man's stunned reaction. "I really can. Don't look so surprised—" he paused there to check Monogram's rank lapels— "Major."

"Wha? I—how? But—" Monogram's jaw fell as he stuttered incomprehensibly. "My—it's—but—why?"

"Sir, shouldn't we ask him why he was spying on the Flynn-Fletcher family?" Carl suggested.

Monogram snapped out of it. "That's what I was just about to do, Carl. Alright, platypus, why were you spying on Agent P's host family?"

"I wasn't spying on them, I was protecting them!" PJ exclaimed.

"He's obviously lying," Monogram said, turning his back on the prisoner.

"No! I can prove it!" PJ nearly shouted. "Look it up in your records. My authorization code is three-alpha-dash-niner-niner-charlie-foxtrot-dash-six-five-seven-alpha-four-niner-dash-zero-one-seven."

"Carl?"

"I'm already on it, sir," Carl said, jumping into a chair beside a computer. "Zero-one-seven, and search. Look, sir! There's a match."

"Let me see that." Monogram looked over the intern's shoulder at the screen. A photo of a platypus beside a date and the name "PJ" was all that could be seen, the rest of the text on the document was blacked-out.

"Classified?" The major mused. "Move over, Carl, let me put in my security number." He did so, and when the document refreshed, nothing changed.

"Okay, what's the deal?" Monogram directed for PJ. "I have Green-level clearance, so why am I not able to see this?"

PJ smiled at the cleverness of his government's hackers. Thirty-five years' technological advantage did have its perks. "Oh, well, I guess I'm just special. Now, are you going to untie me, or not?"

Monogram sighed. "Let him go, Agent P."

Perry obediently did so, but he kept a wary eye on PJ all the same.

"Thanks, Pops," PJ said sarcastically as he rubbed his raw wrists. "Oh, and nice hat."

"Wait," Monogram said before the freed platypus could make his way out the door. "Agent 'PJ', I demand an explanation!"

PJ thought for a moment. "Okay, but this is all highly classified. I'm trying to find an assassin. Female, blonde, mid-thirties. She's after the boys," he added, glancing at Perry. "And maybe their raven-haired friend, too—Isabella Garcio-Shapiro. They're all in danger until I can find this woman."

"I see," Monogram said. "Very well. Carl? You know what to do."

The intern hastily produced an empty picture frame and held it before Monogram's presence, so that from the perspective of the two platypuses, it was like viewing him through a screen. "Good afternoon, Agent P. Your next mission is to accompany Agent 'PJ' here, and assist him in finding this assassin." Perry waved his arms frantically with a look of protest on his face. "That's the spirit, Agent P," Monogram added, misinterpreting his body language.

"Actually, I think that would be helpful," PJ said, turning to Perry. "Oh, and by the way, I kinda-sorta already borrowed your jetpack and plasma torch. Don't give me that look, I needed them!" Turning back to Monogram and Carl, he continued. "You, intern—Carl is it?—I need you to watch the kids. They should be safe at the park with their parents around, but just keep an eye on them anyways, okay?"

"Aye-aye, sir!" Carl said, receiving a look of dismay from Monogram.

PJ nodded. Turning to Perry, he gestured toward the door. "Well, we should go, er—Agent P."

Carl and Major Monogram watched them leave. "Sir," Carl asked, "why did you send Agent P to help him?"

Monogram frowned. "I still get the feeling he's up to something, so I wanted Agent P to stay close by. You have to think quick like that to be a top leader in an important government agency like the O. W. C. A."

* * *

With PJ sitting in the passenger seat, Perry drove, flying across the city in his hovercar.

"Now, the easiest way to find the assassin is gonna be to find where she arrived," PJ said. "Do you have any contacts in the city we can question? Someone who watches everything that comes and goes? See if anyone knows about an assassin recently arriving in town?"

Perry acted like he didn't hear. He kept staring straight ahead.

"What, still don't trust me?" asked PJ. "Look, I already proved that I'm on your side! To both you and the Major! What more do you want?" When Perry continued to look forward, PJ rolled his eyes and looked out the side.

"Listen, I'm aware you can't talk, but I know you can understand me, so at least do something!" Perry just gave him a brief look of annoyance before returning to driving.

PJ threw his hands up in the air. "Fine! I'm just trying to help! The more we work together, the sooner we can get the boys out of danger." He went quiet. As he did, the putting sound of the hovercraft's thrusters and the wind whooshing by suddenly became obnoxiously more noticeable.

After a full minute of silence, the platypus with the fedora gave the softest of sighs and extracted a digital camera hidden inside his hat. Without looking at PJ, he handed it over.

PJ gave him a questioning look and turned it on. A photo of Phineas and Ferb riding a rollercoaster appeared on the screen. "What's this?" he asked, scrolling through the pictures. Every single one was about the boys; competing with their mother's car in a racing derby, performing a one-hit wonder as a band, partying at a backyard beach, rounding up cattle, building a rocket ship, racing chariots, and the list went on. "But," he said, going through them one-by-one, "these are all about Phineas and Ferb and their friends. Why do you have these?"

Turning his head slightly, Perry looked at the other platypus. PJ saw the faintest hint of emotion glimmer for one twinkling second in Perry's eyes. It was enough, he understood.

"You're sad that you are never around to be with them," he said. Perry refocused his attention on driving. PJ continued scrolling through the pictures, there were dozens. Sure enough, not a single one of the pictures displayed a platypus tagging along. Some of them were even blurry, as if taken with haste or from a distance. PJ felt Perry watching him out of the corner of his eye, and it struck him that this camera was one of his most prized possessions. Once he finished, he gently handed the camera back to its owner, to be stowed back away in its regular hiding place.

After a minute, PJ spoke again. "Where are we going, anyways?" Perry answered by pointing at a tall purple skyscraper directly ahead. Near the top, the words  _Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc._  were inscribed across the façade in large, friendly letters. "That's a weird looking building," he commented.

The hovercraft speedily zoomed upward to settle just above the apex of the building. A small laser weapon retracted from the side of the vehicle to carve a small hole through the glass atrium. Perry led the way diving through the hole, and PJ followed. They landed side-by-side in a large room full of blinking electronic equipment. Suddenly, a large metal cage came crashing down, trapping the both of them with a loud clang. A laugh came from the shadows of the room, setting both animals' fur on end. "Ah, Perry the Platypus! I've been expecting you.  _Achoo!_ "

A great sneeze erupted from behind an eight-foot tall cylindrical capsule, and a man in a white lab coat emerged from hiding while mopping his nose with a hankie. "Sorry, Perry the Platypus; thanks to your little shenanigans earlier with my Sneeze-inator, I haven't been able to stop sneezing all day.  _Achoo!_  Every time I complete a sentence, it seems, I have to sneeze again, and it's getting really annoying.  _Ah-ah-achoo!_  See? That time, I almost didn't sneeze, it sort of crept up on me at the last—Merlin's beard! Why are there two platypuses in there?!" Doofenshmirtz hollered, nearly jumping out of his skin when he saw what was inside the cage.

"I was  _trying_  to tell you, but you just wouldn't listen." A second Doofenshmirtz appeared from behind the capsule as well. "And I thought we agreed to come out from behind the Time-Capsule-inator at the same time so we could scare them?"

"I know," the first Doofenshmirtz said, "but all this sneezing keeps distracting me.  _Achoo!_ "

The other Doofenshmirtz rolled his eyes at his counterpart. "Anyway, Perry the Platypus, you are probably wondering why there are two of us. Well, to give you a straight answer, I'm  _from the future!"_  Doofenshmirtz wiggled his long, spindly fingers mysteriously as he said it.

Perry and PJ both gave unimpressed looks. There was another loud " _achoo!_ " in the background.

"Alright, maybe you didn't catch that over Sneezy over here," Doofenshmirtz repeated. "I said, I'M FROM THE FUTURE!" He paused with a silly grin, expecting them to react. "C'mon, you're supposed to be surprised!" He suddenly gave an exasperated look. "You know, like when somebody says that in a movie, and it's always creepy and, like, 'what, are you pulling my leg? Or are you serious?' You know, like that!" He slouched in disappointment.

"I was like that, when you told me!  _Achoo!_ "

"Yes, I know, but that's different." The second Doofenshmirtz frowned. "And gesundheit."

"Thanks."

PJ opened his mouth to speak. "Look, lots of people have been to the future these days. People don't think that anymore when somebody tells them they're from the future!" The two evil scientists and Perry gave him a quizzical look. "Or, at least, that's how it is for me."

The sneezing Doofenshmirtz raised a pointing finger at PJ. "Wait a second, you're a talking platypus?  _Achoo!_ "

"I was trying to tell you earlier," the Doofenshmirtz who claimed to be from the future explained. "Perry the Platypus' little friend can talk."

"Yeah, I remember you saying that, I just don't remember you mentioning he was a platypus, too.  _Achoo!_ "

Perry rattled the cage door, testing it.

"Ah-ah-ah, Perry the Platypus," Future Doofenshmirtz said, wagging a finger. "That cage is locked tight. And there's no way you can get out of it, because I have the only key right here in my lab coat pocket." He extracted it, to show them it was so.

"Hey, I've got the key, too!" came the enthusiastic declaration from the other man with the German accent. " _Achoo!_ "

"Of course you do!" Doofenshmirtz told his other self. "You are me, so we both have a key!"

PJ looked at the two evil scientists, having quickly deduced that they were complete idiots. What he didn't know was that Perry came here every day, so he jumped to the conclusion that Perry had taken him to see this man from the future because he might have information about the assassin, since she was also from the future. "Hey, you from the future!" He addressed the Doofenshmirtz who was twirling the key around his finger. "We're looking for someone else who has also come from the future, know anything about her? She's blonde, mid-thirties, has a thing for kidnapping innocent children…"

"Hmm, I don't know her," the Doofenshmirtz said, casually leaning up against the cage using his free hand. "But from the sound of it, I think I'd like to! Hey, wait a minute—I remember this! This is the part where you—OUCH!"

With him distracted, Perry had reached his head between the bars and bitten him on the ankle. Doofenshmirtz reflexively dropped the key to grab his leg, and Perry snatched it from the ground and quickly unlocked the cage door.

"Nice work, D—!" PJ clamped his bill shut with his own hand, looking guilty. Perry gave him a suspicious look as he readjusted his fedora, but was content to let it slide once he swung the bars open and leaped out of the cage.

"Alright, this looks like it's a face off," the sneezy one said. "Two Doofenshmirtzes versus two platypuses! I like those odds.  _Achoo!_ "

"Oh, yeah, well, wait until you see what happens next!" Future Doofenshmirtz grumbled.

Perry and PJ looked at each other, a knowing smile crossing both of their countenances. In unison, they sprang forward, each latching on to the face of one evil scientist. Madness ensued. Ruckus and racket and all kinds of noises accompanied the fighting. Perry stood on the shoulders of his opponent, pulling at strands of hair and yanking at his ears while pecking at his skull with his beak. PJ had clung upside-down like a spider to the front of the lab coat of one Doofenshmirtz, and was repeatedly slapping his tail across his face back and forth. Moments later, the two Doofs were sent hurtling at each other, crashing into a heap on the floor. Side-by-side like mirror images of one another, Perry and PJ stood, pulled back a fist, and knocked their foes like clockwork across the room.

One Doofenshmirtz grimaced slightly as he tried to sit upright. "Alright, listen, other me," he said. "The only way we can take them on is one at a time!" They stood up to face their advancing nemeses. "Let's gang up on Perry the Platypus first, then we'll take on the talking one."

" _ACHOO!_ " The other one sneezed in agreement.

"Really? You're still sneezing in the middle of a fight?"

"I can't help it!"

"Just don't get any germs on me," said Future Doofenshmirtz, retracting slightly.

"We have the same germs!"

Having regrouped thusly, both lab coat clad evil scientists charged for Perry. He was able to jump out of reach of one, but the other snatched him by his forepaws. Perry kicked and struggled only to have his hind paws caught by the other Doofenshmirtz, stretching him out by all fours like a picnic blanket. PJ rushed over to help. The pair of Doofs swung Perry's body at him, causing them to collide.

"Hey, we make a good team," acknowledged Doofenshmirtz.

"Yes, yes we do. Your sneezing is even starting to wear off."

" _Ah-ah-achoo!_  Oh, why'd you have to remind me? That one was purely the result of the power of suggestion!"

"Well, don't blame it on me! It's not my fault you—OOF!" A teal streak out of nowhere delivered a glancing blow to his face, sending him sprawling. "Okay, I think we officially need more 'me's.'"

"Aha! Perry the Platypus interrupted you in the middle of a sentence this time!" Doofenshmirtz pointed, nearly bursting into laughter. "It's kind of nice not being on the receiving end of that for once, haha-hah- _ah-ACH—_ OOF!" Another teal streak shot out of nowhere and struck him as well, knocking him into the Time-Capsule-inator in the center of the room. The way he impacted the control pad with his head caused the automatic door to slide open. Using one hand to stabilize himself on the doorframe and his other hand to hold his nose, he said, "Ow! Okay, I do  _not_  recommend sneezing and getting punched in the face at the same time!"

Suddenly Future Doofenshmirtz looked up from where he lay. "Get away from there!" He shouted at his counterpart. "Get away from the Time-Capsule-inator right now, before—"

At that same moment, Perry sprang into the air and extended his leg. His kick connected right in the center of the sneezy Doofenshmirtz's chest, launching him into the Time-Capsule-inator. The automatic door closed, a few lights on the control panel flared up, and in a flash the –inator vanished into thin air.

The remaining Doofenshmirtz, who was still lying prone on the ground from the last attack, let his head fall back down with a thud. "Yep. I knew that was gonna happen," he said, accepting that further resistance was useless.

PJ and Perry approached the sprawled evil scientist. "Alright, tell us what you know!" PJ demanded. Doofenshmirtz slowly brought himself up to a sitting position.

"Okay, let's see, one plus one is two; and one plus two is three," he began. "Apple is spelled A-P-P-L-E…"

PJ slapped him across the face. "About the assassin!"

"I don't know anything about an assassin," he said.

"But you said you were from the future!"

Doofenshmirtz turned up his nose. "You know, I think I like it better when platypuses don't talk!" Perry slapped him this time.

"Okay, okay! Here's the thing, I started scheming about a Time-Capsule-inator after Perry the Platypus destroyed my Sneeze-inator earlier today," he explained. "It was supposed to be a brilliant plan, to use the Time-Capsule-inator to send copies of myself from the future back to a certain point in time in the past, so that between strength in numbers and knowledge of future events, I could finally defeat Perry the Platypus!"

Perry glared.

"Hey, don't look at me like that! Anywho, that was the plan, and I was just about to begin building it when, would you believe it! A fully working Time-Capsule-inator appeared in my lab, and I came out of it! Well,  _I_  didn't; it was another me,  _from the future!_  He told me that you would be coming by soon and that you would be bringing a friend, luckily I had set tomorrow's trap already. Then you came, then you escaped, then we fought; long story short, I got thrown into the Time-Capsule-inator and was sent to the past to stumble into myself an hour or so earlier, just getting started on building it here in my lab. Then you guys came, and here we are." He looked around. "At least, I think that's what happened, it kind of gets all jumbled up in my mind after a while."

There was once again a slapping sound; this time, PJ had facepalmed. "So, you're not really from the future?"

Doofenshmirtz grinned sheepishly. "Well, not really. Maybe from like an hour or two in the future, tops, but we seem to have caught up to the present.  _Achoo!_ " He paused to wipe his nose on his sleeve. "Sorry, guess that Sneeze-inator hasn't fully worn off, yet."

PJ growled in dismay and began to pace back and forth. "What a waste of time! Why did we even come here?" he asked, shooting a withering glare at Perry. "I thought the point of all this was to find some leads in our investigation, not play  _Hogan's Heroes_  with Sergeant Schultz here!"

"Hey!" Doofenshmirtz upstarted. "I'm not  _that_  overweight!"

"I know," PJ said. "I was referring to you being a complete imbecile."

A hurt look crossed Doofenshmirtz's face. "Oh, yeah? Well, you're a, uh, um—darn it, I wish I was better at these insult things."

PJ rolled his eyes. Turning to Perry, he asked, "Do you hang out with this guy a lot?"

"Well, yeah," Doofenshmirtz answered for him. "I mean, we are nemesises, after all. Or is it nemeses? I always forget…"

"WHAT?" PJ exploded, rounding on Perry. "You just took me along with you to defeat your nemesis? You just wanted me to help you in cleaning up your dirty work? Is that it?"

Perry shook his head emphatically while waving his outstretched palms. "No?" PJ asked. "Then what are we doing here, then? Obviously, we aren't going to find any deadly time-traveling assassins around him!" He gesticulated over his shoulder at the evil scientist.

Timidly, Doofenshmirtz cleared his throat. "Uh, guys?" he asked, upon getting their attention. "If you're looking for someone that's using a time machine, you could always track it by its radiation signature."

The two platypuses gave him a long, hard look. "And, how might one do that?" PJ asked.

"Simple," stated Doofenshmirtz. "By building a Time-machine-radiation-signature-tracking-inator."

PJ balled up his fist threateningly.

"No, really!" Doofenshmirtz yelped, raising a hand to shield himself. "I'm being serious!"

"You better build one," PJ leered, "and it had better work." Doofenshmirtz swallowed before standing on his feet and getting to work.

"It will take me a couple minutes," he said, pulling out a toolbox and extracting some old blueprints. "You know, I think there might be some sodas in the fridge, if you guys want one."

* * *

PJ held the small, GPS-like device in his hands. "Alright, there are three little dots, what do those mean?"

"Those are where a time machine has been recently used," Doofenshmirtz explained. "There's one here, where we are, see? That must be from my Time-Capsule-inator."

"This one here is the time machine I used to get here." PJ pointed.

"Wow, that's a good hiding place," Doofenshmirtz commented.

"I know. That's why I left it there," drawled PJ. "So, this third blip must be the one the assassin used to get here. Any idea where that is?"

Doofenshmirtz looked closely. "That looks like it's the Museum."

For a moment no one spoke, they all just stared at the screen. At last, PJ said, "well, to the museum, then." He handed the device to Perry and made for the hovercar.

Perry looked at his nemesis, wondering if he should give the Time-machine-radiation-signature-tracking-inator back. "It's okay, Perry the Platypus, I don't need it. You go ahead and destroy it if you'd like; it's not evil enough to be of use."

With a nod, Perry slammed it hard against the floor, shattering it to bits. Doofenshmirtz just smiled. "Curse you, Perry the Platypus. Oh, and your talking platypus friend, curse him too."

Perry tipped his hat and followed PJ into the hovercraft.

* * *

"Your nemesis is weird," PJ said as they flew above the city.

"Grdrdrdrdrd," Perry had to agree.

"Still, at least he was able to give us a clue." PJ stopped thoughtfully. "Finally, I can finish my mission and go home." Perry gave him a curious glance. "Oh, right, I never told you, did I? Yes, I am from the future. It's why I can talk. One of the more practical advancements in the genetic sciences, you missed out."

"Grdrdrdrdrd," said Perry.

"No, I can't actually understand you, but it's fun to pretend I can. Speaking of things I don't understand, why were we fighting earlier? The fight which you only won because you cheated, by the way."

When Perry shook his head at that, PJ's face twitched. "Yes you did! If I hadn't been wearing those silly clothes that kept my tail restrained, I'd have easily beaten you!" Perry waved him off in what was clearly a gesture of denial. "Whatever. Why did you attack me, anyways?"

Perry looked away. At first, PJ thought he was trying to avoid answering, but then he realized where the secret agent was looking: the Flynn-Fletcher house. They were passing it at that very moment.

"Oh, right, you thought I was spying on them," PJ said. Then Perry shook his head slightly. "No, that's not it? Then why?"

Extracting his camera once more, Perry pointed at PJ, then at the boys in the picture.

"I don't get it," PJ said.

Perry sighed, putting the camera away. What else could he do? There was no easy way to explain what it really was, even if he could talk. But the truth was, Perry was jealous. Jealous that this other platypus had been able to spend time with his boys, something he wished he could do more than anything; but he was tied to his duties at the Agency with protecting his family alongside the rest of the Tri-State Area.

Somehow between seeing Perry's somber attitude and remembering that the camera was all about the boys, it clicked. PJ deduced that Phineas and Ferb were the reason. It was obvious now, Perry loved them dearly.

PJ leaned back in his seat. "You know, Phineas told me something while I was helping him and Ferb with today's project," he said. He turned to look at Perry. "He thought having me there was the coolest thing ever, because I remind him so much of you." Perry met his eyes briefly before looking back out the windshield.

"They really do think of you every day you are gone. They miss you when you can't be there with them. You're lucky to have them." Although Perry tried not to show it, his lips curled ever so slightly into a little smile.

PJ didn't notice, having already turned back to watch the city roll by down below while recalling the way Phineas and Ferb and their friends had treated him so nicely. When he left, he realized, he was going to miss them.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Danville, USA  
July 4, 2014

 _I-F._  Those two letters had always held special significance for Isabella, for, together, the word they formed was always festering in her mind.  _If_  only she could find a way to show Phineas her true feelings.  _If_  only he accepted her love.  _If_  only he returned it.  _If_  only they could be together.  _If_  only she could be certain. If. Long ago she had made the connection that those two letters also framed the initials she hoped her name would one day bear: IF; Isabella Flynn. For many years she had wondered whether this striking coincidence would ever become reality—if only she could become Isabella Flynn. Now, sitting so close to Phineas their shoulders and elbows kept brushing, how strange it was now to finally know for certain.

She had never expected to learn the answer the way she had, straight from the mouth of a platypus; especially with Phineas present to learn of their future together as well. Nevertheless, even though things between them had been a little rough at first, and despite the eventuality of actually getting married to him was still a matter far away, she was happy. What was more, after the events of today, her friendship with him was stronger than ever. The stars had truly aligned in her favor. And she hadn't even had a chance to analyze the rest of the news she'd heard about her future—one day she would become the President of the United States!

Isabella couldn't help feeling like a queen. She melted inwardly as her mind ran over all the events of today again. After the accident at the parade, she, Phineas and Ferb were nearly kidnapped by a blonde woman in an ice cream truck. Had it not been for PJ, the mysterious talking platypus from the future, they could have been in serious trouble. Then came the part that had almost frightened her to death, when PJ all but told Phineas of her feelings for him. It had taken him some time to come around, but finally, all her dreams had come true and she had her moment with the boy she adored. And that memory sent her head spinning back to the clouds once again.

Currently they were eating a late lunch, all of the group seated at a bench beneath a shady tree, surrounded by hordes of picnickers like themselves, none of whom gave the children any heed. Buford was spitting watermelon seeds at passersby while Ferb listened to Phineas and Baljeet discuss the historical events surrounding the American War for Independence. Isabella was content to soak in the moment and let the others talk, so she quietly built small triangle and circle shapes on her plate out of her macaroni salad. For the millionth time in the last hour, she thought back to that conversation she and Phineas had had standing alone backstage, and replayed it yet again in her mind's eye.

_"Isabella, I don't know if you know this or not about me, but I'm not the most—what would you call it?—_ _romantically inclined_ _person."_

_"No!" Isabella mock gasped._

_The boy failed to catch the sarcasm. "It's true," he assured her. "I don't know if you're in to romance and that kind of stuff, but I know most girls are; and seeing as you're a girl, I'm guessing you probably do, you know, like romance?"_

_Isabella wore a funny look, like Phineas was a small child who had just figured out that two plus two equals four and believed he was actually enlightening her by telling her it was so. "I've thought about it once or twice," she sardonically understated, with a hint of playfulness as she watched her beloved squirm._

_"I see," he answered. "I'm not very romantically inclined; I mean, I guess I just said that, didn't I?" Phineas' cheeks turned a little red, but instead of stopping, he took a deep breath. "Look, Isabella, I don't know how to say this, but—I guess I'm sorry about earlier. I don't even know why I'm sorry, I just am. What PJ said about us just really confused—."_

_A delightful shiver tingled Isabella's spine as she laid a silencing finger across his lips. "It's okay, Phineas. You don't have to be sorry for anything."_

_Phineas pulled her hand from his away from his mouth and lowered it to his chest, causing that shiver to linger. "Are you sure? You looked so scared back there when PJ said we were going to be—to be…" He couldn't bring himself to say the word. They were standing so close now she could feel his breath on her face._

_Deciding there was no turning back now, Isabella Garcia-Shapiro bravely squared her shoulders. "Married?" she offered. Phineas nodded, then remembered he was still holding her hand betwixt his two. To her delight, he didn't let go. That fact gave her the courage she needed to do what she did next. Timing her movement exactly as he resumed his thought, she gently placed her other hand onto his._

_"Even if that really is the future, I just don't want it to—" Phineas had begun. Her touch stopped him. Looking down to see her hands holding his, he paused—as if he briefly lost his train of thought, but quickly regained it. "—You know, affect our friendship." He almost didn't have to finish the sentence. It couldn't be any clearer to the both of them that it wouldn't._

_Isabella willed her eyes to remain dry. It wasn't that hard, she wanted to stare into that face forever. She simply beamed at him. "Well, you are acting a little more 'romantically inclined' right now."_

_Phineas broke into a silly grin. "Yes. Yes, I am." Much more at ease now, he returned her gaze. "I bet someday in the future you'll probably be winning that swimsuit contest," he thought out loud. "You are beautiful."_

_Blushing, Isabella moved in closer—ever so slightly—as time crawled to a stop._

Her mind paused there. It was all so wonderful! She was so lost in her own happiness that she wanted to forget all about the fact that that blonde haired lady with the ice cream truck was still after them. She wanted to forget all those times Phineas hadn't paid attention to her or comprehended her cues. She wanted to forget about everything that had happened except that one moment, that one moment today, alone with Phineas, his eyes never leaving hers, her body drifting closer toward his like the bliss of a pleasant dream—except, finally, this time was real, and it was everything she'd ever hoped it would be…

* * *

In another sector of the park, Candace had accompanied her mother and father back to the pie eating contest. The impetuous teenager looked rather glum at the moment, prompting her mother to inquire, "What's the matter, Candace?"

She sighed. "I'm bored."

"Well," Linda said thoughtfully, "why don't you go find Jeremy? Weren't you with him earlier?"

"Yeah, but he's watching Suzy right now," Candace shrugged. "I prefer not to hang out with him when  _she_  is around."

"Oh, Candace," waved Linda, "she can't be that bad."

"Can't be that bad?! Mom, she's evil!"

"Right. Just like how the boys are always 'building' stuff."

"Exactly! It's only when nobody is looking that she shows her true colors!"

Linda shook her head sympathetically. "Candace, she's just a little girl. She is not evil."

The red-headed daughter crossed her arms. "Fine. Believe what you want."

"Why don't you hang out with Stacy, then?"

"Hey," Candace lit up. "That's not a bad idea! I haven't seen Stacy all day!" Jumping to her feet, she made to leave.

"Make sure to be back before dark! Or you'll miss the fireworks!" Linda called.

"Okay Mom!" Candace raced through the crowds, figuring Stacy was probably somewhere close by. However, she hadn't gotten far when she noticed something strange. A woman with neatly curled blonde hair was carrying a wooden crate the size of a large microwave, weaving her way through the concourses toward the center of the park. She didn't know why, but something about this woman sent shivers running down Candace's spine. She decided to follow her and investigate.

The woman was moving purposefully, and the box seemed to be a little too heavy for her. When she was too tired to continue, she merely plopped it onto the grass and stopped to catch her breath. Candace crept slowly closer, wondering what was inside the crate.

After taking a moment to rest, the woman knelt beside a padlock and opened it with a small key. Candace couldn't tell what she was doing after that. The woman's lips were silently moving. It appeared as if she was  _talking_  to the box. Thinking that was really strange, Candace tip-toed closer still until she was almost right behind the woman. Here she was near enough to hear lots of scratching noises coming from the crate. Yet before she could guess what it could be, the lid flipped wide open and hundreds of furry creatures spewed out in all directions like lava erupting from a volcano.

Candace screamed. So did practically every other female (except this blonde woman who had brought the crate with her) in the immediate vicinity. For, it turned out, the scratching Candace had heard was mice. Hundreds of them had apparently been crammed into the box and were now gushing out of it unceasingly, scurrying to and fro in every direction.

The chaos was immediate. Candace herself about-faced and ran, as did many others. When only moments ago there had been nothing but the sounds of happy people—ceaselessly droning chatter, carefree laughter, the playful shrieks of galloping children—now the air was filled with screaming and shouting. Some called for help, others cried in fear. But there weren't any who stayed put.

At first, the mice were mainly trying to escape their crammed quarters, but the pandemonium of people frightened them as much as they frightened the people. The mice scurried and scattered randomly all across the park, squeaking and squawking in pain every time they got trampled on in the bedlam. Some ran for the eating area. Frightened diners first threw what food morsels were at hand at the critters, then overturned the chairs and in many cases even the tables on them, so desperate and so hasty was their flight.

Next the hordes of rodents turned toward the games. Here some brave teenagers thought to make a stand by stomping on the pint-sized invaders, but they were quick to falter when unsubstantiated cries of "rabies!" rang from the adults. So they too joined the panicking retreat. Little children who could not run well were picked up and carried. A small band of young kids playing near a blow-up bounce house hoped to find refuge inside, but when the sharp teeth of one mouse pierced the structure, they were swallowed by its collapse and found themselves trapped. The river of mice continued to flood other areas, as well.

Then came the cats. With wicked speed every feline in the city it seemed, from the stray to the trained, converged on the mice. If anyone stopping to watch thought that the commotion would end with the cats catching and eating all the mice, they were wrong. It just meant that there were more claws, teeth, and fur to go around than ever before. The disorder became widespread indeed as everything at or below knee level still remaining at the park was scratched, bitten, clawed, and hissed at. Now cries of pain rent the air in accompaniment to the shouting and screaming that was already by this point regular background din.

One lone figure stood still in the center of the park. The blonde woman, having never flinched since the moment the pests were released, remained unharmed beside the opened crate. Like the calm in the eye of a hurricane, that was the one place no mouse had elected to roam, preferring instead to join the others in dispersing across every possible direction. And although there was now no one around to see, her face twisted in pleasure at the sight of utter mayhem.

* * *

A little ways from the park a platypus-sized hovercar zoomed across the sky, its two passengers looking very serious as they approached their destination.

"Okay, how much further to the museum?" PJ asked. Perry pointed straight ahead in response: they were finally there.

After parking behind a grove of trees across the way, the two agents snuck their way into the historical building. Perry made quick work in picking the lock to a simple custodial side-door through which they silently slipped. The museum was closed for the holiday and all the lights were off, but the large glass windows let in plenty of sunlight to illuminate its spacious, yet unnervingly empty, interior. Together they padded through the building, finding no signs of life.

As the platypuses entered a large new corridor, they closely inspected every display they made their way past. The only noise to be heard was the soft pattering of little webbed feet. Towards the far side of the room, a fierce looking full-size T-rex rendered in shockingly life-like plaster stood like a threatening sentinel guarding the doorway into the atrium. Nearby, a femur-shaped fossil sat eight feet tall on a round throne-like pedestal, proudly vaunting its unmatched size. Other fossils lay scattered around the room as well, carefully protecting their secrets beneath layers and layers of rock. Perry and PJ took opposite sides of the room, searching for something relevant. It wasn't until PJ rounded the corner behind the tall fossil that a small room radiating a strange, ethereal glow caught his attention.

"Oi!" It wasn't so much a yell as it was a magnified whisper, as if to refrain from waking the slumbering monsters of history. "Come check this out!"

Perry scampered over and saw PJ pointing at a large, yellow painted metal contraption, with red cushioned seats and an enchanting purple bulb attached to the top. The bulb softly glowed, basking the room in a deep, otherworldly hue. "I don't know about you, but that looks like a time machine to me."

To his side, PJ felt his companion nod, then point at an identifying poster overhead which confirmed their suspicions. "Time Machine," PJ softly read. "Well, if this is really the time machine that the blonde lady arrived here in, then we're in luck. We can take it apart right here so that the assassin won't be able to get away. We'll be able to keep her here, in this time." PJ pointed to the top of the device, still whispering. "You disassemble that purple light bulb, it looks important; I'll remove the lever to really make sure it doesn't work. That way if she tries to leave, she'll be stuck!"

By way of the 'thumbs up' sign, Perry agreed. He leapt up on to the machine as PJ reached out to touch the controls when the silence was shattered.

_BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!_

Both platypuses jumped, only to snicker nervously when they saw it was just Perry's wristwatch communicator. Perry tapped it once and Carl appeared on its tiny screen.

"Agent P!" squeaked the intern, clearly distressed. "The picnic at the park that your owners were at has just been—well, attacked, I think! It's a  _cat-_ astrophe!"

"Carl, this isn't the time for jokes!" Monogram pushed his younger, tech-savvy subordinate out of the screen. "Agent P, unfortunately what Carl said is true. For some reason, the park your owners were last known to be at has just been invaded by cats. Lots and lots of cats. Somebody's Grandma must have forgotten to shut one of her windows. Anywho, the cats have gone kitty loco, causing everyone to flee the area, and it's the perfect opportunity for an assassin to strike. We cannot guarantee the safety of your owners at this time."

"We lost them, Agent P," Carl whined from off-screen. "We lost them!"

"Agent P," urged Monogram, "you and Agent PJ need to drop whatever it is you are doing, and find those kids before the assassin does!"

The two platypuses looked at each other, both seeing the worry in the other's eyes.

"We gotta disassemble this time machine first," PJ said. "It'll only take a second, then we should hurry and find the kids after." Perry chattered in reply and started untwisting the purple bulb. PJ pulled the lever adjacent to the direction it was supposed to be shifted and it popped off without difficulty.

"That'll have to do," he said, as Perry landed beside him with his piece. "C'mon, we have to hurry!"

* * *

The blonde, curly-haired assassin strolled across the park, admiring her work. She paid no attention to the hissing cats she passed by, knowing that they could do her no harm. The crowds, on the other hand, had scattered completely. She didn't care where they went, whether they piled in cars and sped away or fled on foot through the neighborhoods. All that mattered was driving her quarry out into the open, and she had done that marvelously. It would be much easier to accomplish her task, she reasoned, away from the busy, populated park; especially now that the kids and their animal guardian knew about her. She scoffed at the memory of the talking platypus who had come to their rescue last time she had them in her grasp.  _An animal agent. Working for the secret service._  Although they had slipped away last time, she was prepared for them now. And the fact that their pathetic protector was a platypus would make it all the simpler.

* * *

Candace puffed heavily as she caught her breath, leaning against a lamppost. She hated rats and mice almost as much as she hated spiders, and was glad to finally be safe. However, her thoughts soon turned to her brothers. What if they hadn't been able to make it out in time? This worried her, and as soon as she could stand upright Candace peeked around the corner she had just high-tailed across.

There weren't any mice or cats in sight, and the coast being clear, she stepped out into the open. Here and there, others who had run away like herself wandered aimlessly by. It looked like most of them were at least with their families, which brought anew her fears regarding her own to the forefront of her mind.

She continued down the street, looking for any sign of someone she recognized. Phineas, Ferb, Stacy, her parents; heck, even Isabella or the Fireside Girls would have been a relief to see. But she didn't find any of them. She doubled her pace and checked the next street over. Still no sign of any of them, and the crowds were quickly thinning. Candace broke into a trot.

On the third street, she quickly located Jeremy comforting a frightened Suzy. As soon as she saw them, Candace approached her boyfriend.

"Jeremy!" She called.

The cool blonde boy turned when he heard his name. "Candace? Are you alright?" The two shared a short embrace before turning to more serious matters.

"I'm alright," Candace explained, "but I'm worried about my brothers. I haven't found them since—" she couldn't find a word that adequately conveyed what just happened. "Since—whatever that was all about—happened."

Jeremy gave her shoulder a comforting pat. "I'm sure your brothers are just fine," he said reassuringly. "If there's anyone who knows how to take care of themselves, it's your brothers."

"Yeah," Candace nodded, "I suppose so."

"Do you know what happened back there?" Jeremy asked.

"I'm not sure," his girlfriend replied. "I did see this woman though. She had a box, and when she opened it, a whole bunch of mice came streaming out." Candace cringed at the memory. "After that, I just remember running. I don't know what is going on."

"Suzy and I were walking past the firework sellers," Jeremy recalled, "when everyone around us started running for their lives like it was a zombie apocalypse. I picked up Suzy and brought her here, but I don't know if it's safe to go back or not."

Candace looked at Suzy, and found at least some satisfaction in seeing she was terrified about the ordeal. The precocious toddler had her head buried into Jeremy's leg, trying her best not to cry. That meant Candace didn't have to worry about her pulling any pranks on her, and who knows? Maybe she could hold this little incident over her misleadingly cute head sometime in the future.

Suddenly, Candace heard something that made her stop and listen. "Do you hear that?"

"What is it?" Jeremy asked, tilting his head the way she was looking.

It was faint, but Candace was sure she heard it again. Without saying another word, she sprinted down the street, dodging occasional stragglers as she went. She cornered at the intersection and heard it again: far away, a faint cry.  _"Phin! Ee! As!"_

She hurried across almost two whole blocks before she found the source. Isabella, who had a great dirty smudge across the knee of her pink dress, was shouting the name at the top of her lungs over and over. "Isabella!" Candace ejaculated the moment she was at her side. "Do you know where my brothers are?"

Isabella shook her head dejectedly. "When everyone around us started running, it was like a stampede. We tried holding hands to stick together," she held a hand up and looked at it dejectedly, "but I couldn't hold on. They could be anywhere by now. I had Phineas right there in my hands, and I let him slip away." She hung her head thoroughly.

"It's okay, Isabella," Candace said, trying to be comforting the same way Jeremy had been. "We'll look for them together." She put a hand on her shoulder, but Isabella brushed it away.

"You don't understand!" she exclaimed, waving her arms frantically. "There is someone after us! A blonde lady! She might have already captured them!"

"Wait, what?"

"Earlier, she tried to kidnap us in an ice cream truck," Isabella explained. "As long as she's on the loose, they aren't safe!"

"Hold on a second," Candace thought aloud. "The woman I saw who created this whole mess by releasing the mice in the first place was blonde. Do you think it was her?"

A chillingly sweet voice sang out in answer from behind them. "What a clever little girl!"

Turning to see who spoke, Candace instantly recognized the blonde curly locks of hair she had followed earlier. The woman was a little taller than she, and was standing close enough to them she could reach out and touch the girls. Now that she was able to properly see the woman's face, Candace had the disturbing feeling that it looked terrifyingly familiar.

The face pulled back in a fiendish smile. "I have been looking everywhere for you," she said to Isabella, her voice dripping in poisonous honey. "I have been wanting to meet you for a very long time now, and we didn't get properly introduced before."

Isabella took a step back, and Candace followed her lead. That allowed the assassin to advance ever so slightly, like a tiger stalking its prey. Trying to sound brave, the Fireside Girl did her best to hide the waver in her voice. "Well I don't want to meet you at all!" she said as forcefully as she could muster.

The woman laughed. It was a high-pitched twitter, almost like the chattering of a bird. "Oh, but I think we could have so much fun together!" she stated. "That is the only reason I came all this way to find you. I have all sorts of games I want you to play with me! And believe me, they are so much fun, you would  _die._ " She twittered again. The girls, backpedaling quickly now, were stopped short when their backs bumped into a brick wall.

"Run!" Isabella commanded, shoving Candace down the sidewalk. The teenager got the message and led the way sprinting past the crowds. They rounded a corner and Candace dove behind a dumpster in a narrow alley, pulling Isabella round after her.

"Let's hide here," she panted, doing her best to keep her voice low. Isabella nodded and peeked around the edge of the dumpster.

The street they had turned down was empty, the buildings run-down and neglected. Nobody seemed to have followed them, causing Isabella to sigh with relief.

"She's gone," she said, leaning back against the dumpster to rest.

"Who was that?" asked Candace.

"She's an assassin from the future," explained Isabella. "She is after Phineas, Ferb, and me."

Candace paused to swallow that information. "Whoa," she said. "An assassin, huh? Was it just me, or did she look kind of—"

Suddenly there was a scratching noise, and the two girls jumped. There, standing at the entrance to the alleyway and thus blocking their only way out, was the woman.

"Familiar," Candace droned, as she and Isabella stood to back away.

"Why did you run off?" The assassin grinned. "Don't you want to play with me?"

Isabella bristled. "No! No we don't!"

The assassin pouted. "But we could have so much fun together!" Turning so that her side faced them, she began to pace across the gap. "Why don't you want to play with me? You are just like the other children I grew up with. They never wanted to play with me either." The sugary sweetness never left her voice as she spoke. "Sometimes I would ask them, 'don't you want to play with my dollies?' And they never did. Then when we were older I would ask, 'don't you want to play with my puppy?' And they never would. After a while, I stopped asking, and I have never had a friend to play with me ever since."

Candace couldn't help feeling spellbound by that voice. Before she knew it, she went from feeling scared to feeling sorry for her. "Aww, Isabella, she's not dangerous! She is just looking for a friend." Candace almost took a step forward, but Isabella held out an arm to stop her.

"How do we know you don't want to hurt us?" the wise troop leader demanded.

"Hurt you?" The woman gave her a look of shocked innocence. "What makes you think that I would do something as silly as that?"

"Well, let me think." Isabella put her hand to her chin in a mock gesture. "Oh, that's right. You tried to kidnap me and my friends when you tied us up and drove off in that ice cream truck!"

The blonde assassin gasped. "No, you misunderstood! You see, I had a surprise planned for you and your friends, and I wanted to take you to it! I wasn't trying to kidnap you!"

As if by some sorcery, the woman's voice had a bewitching spell on her listeners. Isabella began to wonder if she really had jumped to conclusions earlier. After all, this woman did seem pretty nice. Maybe she wasn't so bad after all?

Candace took a mesmerized step forward. "See, Isabella? She just wants us to play with her. I think we should listen to her."

Isabella shook her head to clear it. "Maybe you're right," she admitted.

"Yes," cooed the woman. "I am your friend. I won't hurt you." Isabella and Candace inched closer, trancelike. "Come, my children, come. That's it. Just a little closer." She held out a hand, and the girls reached forward as one to touch it.

_CRASH!_

Candace and Isabella were knocked backward by something, both falling hard onto the ground. Isabella squinted through the stars popping over her eyes to see a metal cage now standing where they had been just moments before. Curiously, inside the cage were two teal shapes; yet before she could discern more, her focus receded into darkness. The last sensation she could consciously register was the ringing sound of a woman's evil cackle.

* * *

She couldn't tell whether seconds or hours passed. But when Isabella jolted awake, Phineas was there, and that was what mattered.

"Isabella!" He said with that smile he always wore. "I'm so glad you're okay!" Ferb was as ever at his side, and Candace was nearby, too.

Isabella rubbed her aching head. "What happened?"

Phineas and Ferb looked at Candace, who seemed to be the one best suited to explain.

"Well, at first, it was really confusing. I saw two platypuses who both looked like Perry trapped in a cage that was supposed to be for us," she gestured between herself and Isabella. "I guess you guys know who they were?"

"It must have been PJ," Phineas said. "Candace told us about the assassin. I think PJ was doing his job protecting you, Isabella. But I don't know what Perry was doing with him."

Isabella suddenly remembered. She understood, now. When the cage came crashing down, PJ must have body-slammed her out of the way, taking her place inside the cage. Plus, the teal shapes she had seen were about the size and color of a platypus! It all made sense! But that meant— "She has PJ and Perry!" Isabella realized. "They're trapped in a cage! But, where is it?" She looked around. They were still in the same alley, but the cage was clearly not there.

"I don't think the assassin lady realized what happened," Candace said. "She just grabbed the cage and drove off with it. PJ—who is apparently a talking platypus that I did not even know existed until just now—must have knocked us out of the way when it came down, and he and Perry must have got trapped inside instead of us. I couldn't follow her to see where she went because I had to watch over you. Lucky the boys found us not long after."

Phineas nodded in agreement. Apparently he, Ferb and Candace had gone through this whole conversation already.

"But," Isabella said, a horrified look crossing her face, "that means she has Perry and PJ!"

A somber silence enclosed them. Phineas gave her a concerned look. "Isabella, you're hurt. I don't want you to worry about PJ and Perry."

"I'm fine!" Isabella retorted. She tried to stand to prove it, but the movement gave her a splitting headache. So she gingerly sat upright instead.

"Okay, maybe I'm not a hundred percent," she admitted. "But, what are we going to do?"

Phineas grinned. "PJ is smart. He left us a breadcrumb." Reaching into his pocket, he extracted an uncharacteristically purple light bulb. "Any idea where this came from?"

Isabella's eyes went wide. "The time machine at the museum! PJ figured it out! She must have come here in it!" She tried to stand in excitement, but stumbled and groaned at the pain still throbbing in her head.

"Stay still, you need to rest," Phineas compassionately told her, and she obeyed. "Don't you worry about our ornithorhyncan friends," he said. "We have a plan to rescue them."

"A plan?" Isabella asked.

"That's right."

"But what if it's a trap?!"

"That's a chance we're going to have to take, Isabella. That's why we are going to leave you here with Candace where it's safe."

Candace upstarted at that. "Oh, no, you two are not going into the lion's den without me! I'm still in charge, remember?"

"But Candace," orated Phineas, "if you don't stay and help Isabella, then who will? Perry is our pet, but he's not just our pet! He's our family! We need to help him! You would do the same thing for us!"

Candace sighed in defeat. "You're right."

Isabella wanted to resist, but the pain in her head was too much. "But what are you guys going to do?"

Phineas bent down and hugged her, surprising everybody. "Just trust us."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Danville, USA  
July 3, 2049  
Just after dark

The secret agent waited patiently for the final order to commence operations. Even though the sun had officially set three-quarters of an hour ago, there were still faint glimmers of light in its wake outlining the western horizon. While the heat of the day was being chased away by the cool evening breeze, inside the cockpit of his sleek, high-tech machine, the platypus was quite comfortable.

The peaceful quiet of the streets allowed the anthropomorphic emissary to reflect on the events of the last few days. After it had been discovered that he had historical personal ties to the individuals he had been assigned to protect, his commanding officers were most displeased that he hadn't informed them of the situation, but the truth was that he had long since forgotten about it himself. All his life he had lived completely cut off from them; it took some time to convince his superiors that he hadn't actually regarded any of his family as such for as long as he could remember. Ever since the day he learned the truth about who he really was, as far as he was concerned, he had no family. After all, considering the circumstances of his birth, the idea of 'family' was virtually meaningless.

From the time he was a young pup, PJ had always lived at the O. W. C. A. Academy, training. He didn't even meet the Flynns until after he was fully grown and had graduated; and even then, it was only because it just so happened that in the 2044 election, Isabella Flynn had been elected as the first female President of the United States, and he had already been accepted into the secret service only months earlier. He had few real friends even at the Academy, so during work he took great lengths at all times to keep his business with the Flynns (and on occasion, the Fletchers and Johnsons) professional. Apparently he accomplished this so well over the years that his commanding officers didn't bother to dig up information about his relations with them until after he'd already accepted the assignment to go back in time to when Isabella, Phineas, and Ferb were still kids. Once they found out he had ties to the Flynn-Fletcher family, they tried to reassign him, but he would have none of it. In one long meeting he explained how he had never known them as his family—that he could treat this mission as impersonally as he did every mission. It hadn't been easy, but finally, they agreed.

Now, on the eve of setting out on his mission, it was all settled. In minutes, he would get the call to commence Operation Blackscorch. PJ's nerves tingled with anticipation. He knew that this was the most important mission he had ever taken. At last there was an incoming message beeping at him on the dashboard. He slid a finger across the clean touchscreen and the vehicle's personal videophone activated, causing his commanding officer to appear on a digital display microgrammed into the windshield before him. The man on the screen gave the authorizing command, and PJ nodded in return. He fired up the engine and set the parameters in his customized time machine—the only one in the world authorized to make a trip more than seventeen years back to the past, since it was against the law for anyone to travel further back than the date of the invention of time travel, except for special case missions such as this. Little did he know it would also turn out to be his most deadly.

* * *

Danville, USA  
July 4, 2014

"Ah, the museum," the assassin whispered. "How fitting that it will be in a place of history that history will be forever changed."

Even as she said it, the blonde woman complimented herself yet again. She had patiently stalked her prey for so long, waiting for the right moment to strike, and now she finally had her prize: the (future) President Isabella Flynn. However, the really good news was that she had also captured another personal target of hers—Candace. Candace hadn't been one of her assigned targets when she originally developed her plans, but in the back of her mind she had always meant to get her as well, if she could. And it had gone perfectly. Both girls had cooperated flawlessly on their part in springing her trap. Now they were sitting quietly in the cage in the back of her van, a tarp covering it to prevent them from seeing where they had come. She couldn't wait to lift it and see the looks on their faces.

 _Soon enough_ , she told herself, resisting the urge to look right away. Instead, she pulled her van inside the museum and carefully drove through the empty corridors to the room in which her Time Machine sat awaiting. She brought the van to a stop nearby and opened its back door wide. Reaching in, she hit a green button just inside the vehicle and an elevator-type platform unloaded the cage for her, placing it softly on the floor. Finally, she double-checked that everything was ready for her guests before stretching out a hand to remove the sheet.

"And now, my two new friends—" the sugary sweet voice broke off in a stupor as she gracefully pulled the sheet off the cage to be met by two faces that were not even human, let alone girls. "Well, this is a surprise," she frowned.

* * *

Despite the nasty headache she was experiencing, Isabella willed herself to stand. "What is your plan to save Perry and PJ?" she asked, looking at Phineas, Ferb, and Candace.

"Well," Phineas answered, "for our plan to work, we're gonna need a few things. We'll have to run home where we should still have the parts we can use from leftover projects, and we need to get you to a doctor."

"I'm fine," Isabella said, even as she swayed a little.

Phineas caught her from falling. Somehow the pain went away just a tad. "Isabella, you can't even walk straight!"

That did nothing to the determined look in her eyes, however. "Well, we can't stay here, either." She pushed off of him and took a few labored steps before stumbling again.

"Wait, Isabella!" Phineas caught her by placing his hands on both her shoulders to both steady and resist her from walking any more. "You really shouldn't be exerting yourself; I-I'll carry you!"

Isabella stopped, and her heart melted. "Really? You would do that for me?"

As his brain caught up to his mouth, Phineas looked like he was as surprised as anyone he had even suggested it; even so, he nodded. "Of course I would. Ferb, help her on to my shoulders." He turned and stooped low for her to climb on his back. Ferb guided her into place.

 _Did he just sweep me off my feet?_  Isabella thought as she was being lifted up. They began moving again, with Phineas letting her ride piggy-back. Candace knowingly caught the girl's eye. Isabella blushed slightly and looked away.

They took to the street. "You know, Phineas," Candace reminded the group, "the house is pretty far from here. By the time we walk all the way there, it might be too late to rescue them."

"I know," he replied, "but if you've got any better ideas, I'd love to hear them."

"Can't you just build something? Like a car or a flying carpet?"

"Candace, we're not magicians. We can't do anything without parts to work with," Phineas replied. "You can't just expect something like that to fall out of the sky." At that moment, however, a sleek white and teal hovercar zoomed over the rooftops ahead of them and parked itself in front of the group.

"I guess I stand corrected," Phineas chanted.

"Well how 'bout that," Candace observed. "It's like a car mixed with a flying carpet. And it came out of the sky."

"That was remarkably improbable," came the rare utterance from Ferb.

"Hey, what's the big idea?" asked Candace, who had already tried to slide a leg in but found it to be too small for her. "This thing is tiny! How am I supposed to fit?"

Phineas simply wore a confused look. "Uh, Candace? That's not ours; I don't think you should be trying to ride in it."

"Of course we should be trying to ride in it," Candace claimed as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "We need to get home. There is nobody around; this flying car came literally flying out of nowhere—see where I'm going with this? Look, it even  _looks_  like it wants us to ride in it."

The group looked. On cue, the hovercar automatically opened one of its doors and flashed its lights in an apparently friendly gesture. Phineas turned to Ferb, one eyebrow raised. The English boy shrugged. "It looks like it wants us to ride in it to me."

What they did not know was that it was the same spy car Perry and PJ had been using to get around in, which they had been forced to abandon nearby when they were trapped by the assassin. It is a mystery whether Perry activated a distress signal that caused the vehicle to act this way or if Carl's tinkering with the car's AI (artificial intelligence) systems caused it to find the kids, but somehow it did. Perhaps the boys subconciously recognized it; after all, they had once driven that very hovercar themselves earlier that summer. Whether it was because of that fact or whether he decided that their desperate situation justified using the unclaimed vehicle, Phineas nodded. "Then that settles it. Hold on, Isabella, let's get you in first." Phineas stooped to gently lower her into a seat before sliding in next to her. Ferb dashed around and jumped in on the other side to assume control of the steering wheel.

Candace, on the other hand, had to fold and contort her legs every which way before she finally fit, extremely cramped, across the entire backseat. "I don't get it," she complained. "Who could possibly use seats that are this small?"

"Well," responded Phineas, "Ferb always says to never look a gift horse in the mouth. Of course, in this case I guess you could say to never look a gift flying car in the gas valve—"

"Nevermind!" shouted Candace. "Let's just go already!"

Ferb obligingly hit the thrusters.

* * *

"What did you do?" the assassin smoldered. There was no honey to her voice now; it had been replaced by a berserk fury. "Where are my prisoners? Where are the girls?"

PJ merely smirked in return. To his side, Perry had assumed his undercover pet mode to protect his identity. PJ, on the other hand, sat with arms and legs crossed, calmly watching her through the steel bars. The assassin raised her voice to a shrill pitch. "I know you can talk, you little vermin!"

He growled at that. "Maybe you should be a little more thorough next time," he suggested off-handedly. "Check to see what's inside your trap before you take off with it like a monkey with an empty banana peel."

There was a slam as the assassin brought her fist down on top of the cage. "That is not how you talk to a lady!" PJ stuck his tongue out at her and plibbitted.

Seething in rage, the assassin bent down to their level. "All right, I'm getting tired of you, you big-mouthed platypus. You have been a thorn in my side for too long. I think I'll pluck you out and throw you into the fire where weeds like you belong!" Her gaze hit them with unexpected force. It glinted the malice of pure evil, causing them to withdraw back into the cage in recoil.

"You mean that metaphorically, right?" PJ asked to distract himself from the shiver suddenly running down his back.

The assassin threw back her head and roared in laughter. "I think you know the answer to that! And with your meddling out of the way, I will finally be able to get rid of those children once and for all!"

PJ could tell she was dead serious. "Wait!" he exclaimed, a horrified look in his eyes. "At least let Perry go! He didn't do anything to harm you! He's just an ordinary platypus!"

That same malicious glint shone in the assassin's eyes. "You lie!" she exhorted. "You forget, you aren't the only one from the future! I know just as well as you do that Perry is no ordinary platypus! Are you, Agent P?" Turning to Perry with savvy flair, she suddenly lashed her hand out at him. Not to strike him, but to pull out the fedora he had hidden away. She held it aloft, proving her point. "No, I know you two have been working together this whole time to stop me, and your efforts have failed!" She pointed a menacing finger at PJ, then drew it across to aim at Perry. "You will both share in his owners' fate."

With a defiant look, Perry stood up and snatched his hat back through the bars before perching it atop his head. PJ wore a similar expression as well. "You make me sick," he said.

"Not to fear," the assassin said, turning to leave. "By the time I'm through with you, being sick will be the least of your worries."

"Where are you going?" demanded PJ.

"To go get my toys," replied the woman with a playful toss of her golden hair. That awfully sweet voice returned as well. "We're going to need them for the games we are about to play." At that, she skipped frivolously out the entrance.

PJ banged his fist loudly against the metal bars that were containing him in frustration. "No! I can't let her get away with this! She's just going to go after the boys and Isabella after she is done torturing us and doing who knows what else!"

To his side, Perry sat and bowed his head thoughtfully.

"Easy for you to say," PJ barked, temper flaring. "You nemesis is a nincompoop! Now you see what kinds of people I have to deal with! Of course, my life has never been easy. You probably wouldn't understand. You have a family. Not just any family, you have Phineas and Ferb! I bet your life is practically perfect! You have an easy job defeating an incompetent nemesis every day, you go back to the Agency where everyone loves and adores you, and then you go home to your boys who can do anything! You couldn't possibly understand how hard it is for me."

Perry simply sat and listened, knowing there was nothing else he could do at this point. PJ took a deep breath and sat down opposite him, then continued a little less angrily this time.

"Ever since I was as young as I can remember, I was always living at the Academy. You probably remember what it was like back there, training all the time to become a secret agent. Everybody looks forward to graduation day when they can get placed in a real home with a real host family and become a real OWCA Agent. I was no different, at first. But, for some reason, I was always treated differently at the Academy. Everyone, everything, it seemed, was always harder on me. Like they were trying to push me to my limits, to be the very best. And I was.

"It was competitive, and the other cadets were jealous. I had no friends. All I could do was train harder. But it was never enough for my superiors. One day I decided to find out why they could never be satisfied with my work. So I did some snooping around. That was how I learned about you.

"Perry the Platypus! The great Agent P, OWCA's most legendary agent! And right next to your file was mine, with annotations comparing our skills and abilities! They were comparing me to you! It all became clear to me at that point.

"They must have known that I figured it out because the very next day, they brought me in and told me the truth. I was the result of a decision to test out a new government program. To combat the threats of an increasingly chaotic world, the United States wanted to create super soldiers that could stand up to our enemies. However, it was impossible to get legislation to pass to do it with humans. That was when someone recommended we try it out with animals first. Coincidentally, OWCA was running out of funding and needed something to give them a jump start. So they chose to use their greatest agent of all time for this new program: you!

"Your DNA was sent to a couple of brilliant scientists to begin the process, but when the scientists found out whose DNA it was, you can imagine they were shocked. That's right, those two scientists were Phineas and Ferb.

"After the cloning process was complete, they made a few genetic tweaks to bring out the ultimate potential of their new creation. Making it faster, stronger, smarter, and even able to use human speech. I was created to be the perfect platypus. And they gave me the name PJ—Perry Junior!

"Once I knew all that, I knew I could never be like everyone else—I was born different. That was why OWCA was always running more tests on me than on any other cadet! Because if I, as their little science project, was a success, then they could go forward with the government agenda as planned. Which they did, using other animals as well, but I was the first experiment, the first generation.

"Because I was different, I didn't get a host family. I didn't want one. But I didn't want to sit in a laboratory and be studied all my life, either, so I decided to try and make the most of my existence by joining the Secret Service. I was the first animal ever employed outside OWCA.

"Sometimes I was treated like dirt, like I was less than a human, and it's because I was. It was impossible for me to fit into a society of homo sapiens, even though I walked like them and even spoke their language. But I knew that once I proved myself, I would at last get some respect. So when I received this special mission to travel to the past to protect Phineas and Ferb and Isabella, I leapt at the chance. Not because I cared about Phineas and Ferb, all they did was ship me off to the Academy as soon as I was weaned from the test tubes." PJ paused there, an odd look crossing his face as he thought.

"Ironic, isn't it? When the boys first saw me, they thought I was you—but the truth is, in a sense, I am. A version of you which, for now, exists only in their imagination; but will someday be born as your son!"

Silence fell. Perry just stared straight ahead, unblinkingly. PJ waited for him to do something,  _anything—_ but he was a statue. Finally he turned to look at him. "Well, don't you have anything to say about that? Hold on—" PJ narrowed his eyes to inspect his companion more closely. A statue was the perfect way to describe him. He wasn't even breathing! And there was something funny about the way he looked—

At that moment, Perry fell over sideways like a log. The noise made from the crash was like the plink of wood, not the thud of skeletomuscular matter, and then PJ saw it. A small label attached by a string to this woody body was flung into sight, the word 'decoy' staring at him as blankly as the face of the lifeless statue.

PJ's jaw dropped. "WHAT?! Seriously, I go through all that and you don't even care enough to listen? Thanks for nothing, Dad!"

To add insult to injury, at that moment Perry rappelled down a cable from the ceiling and into PJ's view.

"Oh, remembered that I'm still here, did you?" PJ droned sardonically. Perry rolled his eyes at that as he unlatched his carabiner and began picking the lock, immediately opening the cage and freeing PJ.

"So let me guess, you didn't hear any of that?"

"Grdrdrdrdrd," replied Perry.

"Well, too bad! I'm not giving an encore!" exclaimed PJ, shoving past Perry toward the exit. "You'll just have to live life like the rest of us, not knowing anything at all about your fut—"

Suddenly there was a metallic clang from the rafters overhead, and before either of the platypus agents could react they were swallowed from above by two colorfully adorable piñatas; Perry in a pink unicorn and PJ in a cuddly sky-blue teddy bear, with only their heads exposed through the cut-out face areas.

A ringing laughter echoed out from the shadows of the corridor. "Out of the frying pan," cheered the assassin, emerging into view while taking a finger off the button of a remote she held in her hand. "I suspected you would try to escape, so I prepared a double-layer of traps! I don't think you'll be able to get out of these ones so easily."

The pair of spies struggled and squirmed as she spoke, but for all they did they could not tear free of their stiff cocoons. They now dangled a good eight feet above the museum floor, their every movement causing their piñatas to swing and oscillate lazily in reaction. The woman cackled again. "Now that you both are securely in place, the games can finally begin!"

* * *

The Ferris wheel ride hadn't moved in hours. Not since the operator fled from the park along with everyone else in the panic during its sudden evacuation.

"Do you think it odd that the Ferris wheel has been stuck like this all day?" An oblivious Lawrence directed for his wife, who sat beside him in the uppermost seat. Judging by the wonder in his voice inflection, one might have thought he was speaking as if Christmas was coming early; he appeared to be rather thrilled about it.

Linda smiled playfully at her husband. "I don't know, but I'm not complaining about this view. Everyone else is missing out."

"That's what I love about you Americans," decided Lawrence. "You're so spontaneous; you're like happy little chipmunks with cheek pouches full of nuts."

"Yes," Linda simply said. "Yes we are."

* * *

Lava. Normbots. Chains. Doom. The echoes of this dreary scene flashed through Perry's mind. Sometimes he couldn't help but think that the kids were the lucky ones to have it all erased from their memories. Sometimes he relived them in his nightmares—the heat of the molten rock, the stench of the Goozim's breath, the fear he would lose his family forever—but at least they were just nightmares. What he saw before him now was terrifyingly real.

The assassin wasn't content to do things the simple way. She had completely remodeled the layout of this portion of the museum into some sort of sick, demented version of a little girl's playroom. The walls were draped with old lace that was tattered and torn in places, and had probably once been a brighter shade of pink in days long gone. Near the Time Machine, a dollhouse large enough for a child to physically enter and play inside sat occupying that corner of the room. Stuffed animals with missing eye beads and torn seams occupied the various artifacts of furniture inside the dollhouse, giving a pretentious display of cold warmth. An abandoned tray of teacups attested to the cheer that perhaps might have once resided there amongst their snuggly company, though clearly the tea party's pleasantness had long since worn away. Undercutting any other signs of neglect was the fact that every square inch was perfectly, sterilely, spotlessly clean.

Creepy as that was, the main feature that attracted the attention of the two trapped prisoners was on the other side of the room. Offsetting the hollow, chilling innocence of the nursery, the far side of the room looked like it could serve as a penthouse for a psychopathic serial killer. A large ballast tank was sitting next to a table lined with rows of surgical instruments of every size, shape, and sharpness imaginable. Perry had difficulty swallowing when he thought of what the assassin planned to use them for.

The blonde woman seemed to sense the fear of her captives. "Oh, this is going to be so much fun." Her voice trickled like a river as she clapped her hands together. "It will be like playing with my dollies all over again!" Making her way to a box the size of a convection oven, she pried its doors open, revealing to her platypus prisoners what was inside: dozens of mutilated toy dolls. Some were hanging by strings because all their appendages were missing. Others had burn marks across their bodies and charred bald scars where their hair should have been. The sight was enough to make one squeamish.

There was a slam as the assassin closed the box again. "But, what game should we play?" she pondered aloud. As ever, her voice was drowning in honey. " _Scissors Roulette?_ " She playfully touched a finger to her dimple as she listed suggestions, all part of her cutesy act to further toy with her prisoners. " _Poison Ivy? Rip Out The Stuffing_? Or, maybe we should play my favorite;  _Burn, Baby, Burn!_ " A fire erupted in her eyes that was no mere reflection of the flame she ignited and held aloft on a torch.

"Okay," said PJ, eyeing the woman with trepidation, "I can see you played a lot of messed up games as a child; might I recommend taking up a hobby a little less—destructive? Solitaire, perhaps? Maybe a nice game of chess?"

That twisted smile only grew as the assassin walked across the way, picked up one of the surgical instruments lined up on the table, and poked the razor deep into the blaze's core. In seconds its tip was glowing red hot.

"Um, okay—if those aren't to your liking," PJ gulped, "I bet some yoga would help. Or, you know, some similar physical activity, to get rid of that extra pent-up energy in a positive way."

The assassin extracted the incisor for a short inspection before putting it back down. "What's the matter, you don't like my games?" she pouted.

"It's just that they sound like someone is about to get scarred for life—or worse."

"Let me tell you something," the woman responded, laying down the torch to begin her exposition. "In everything in life, no matter what it is, it could  _always_  be worse." She turned her back on her prisoners so that they could no longer see her face. They could only hear her voice, and for once it was accentuated with neither venom nor honey.

"July fourth, two-thousand fourteen. What a random day to pick to go back in time to visit. I could have chosen any other day, but I chose this one. Why? Because it was this day that I lost everything. And I never forgot it. Yes, that's right. Somewhere out there, my younger self is about to have the worst day in her life. Why wouldn't I want to change it?"

"What does any of that have to do with Phineas, Ferb, and Isabella?" prodded PJ.

The woman blew a strand of golden hair out of her way. "With them? Not much, really. But that's not what matters. The thing is, I don't care anymore about this day, about what it did to me. I'm not upset about it anymore. It just seemed like a good day to choose—an appropriate day for when I changed the history of the world."

"That's what I don't understand," PJ interjected. "Do you realize what would happen to history if you eradicated those three people from it? I can't think of a more drastic altercation than to lose the Flynn-Fletchers!"

"Exactly."

PJ's jaw dropped in horror. "Are you even listening to yourself? What about that sounds like a good thing to you? It's completely psychotic!"

The back of her shoulders shrugged. "If I really tried, I might be able to get you to see my way. You see, I've always had a gift. I can make people do things; things I want them to do. You might say I'm a master of manipulation. Ever since I was young, it's been like a second nature to me. Over the years I perfected my art, and it made me who I am today." She finally turned back around to face them. "It's always how I have been able to get things done. You might call it evil, I don't really care. Sure, it's not the same as being an evil scientist or even an evil dictator, but evil comes in many forms.

"Ultimately, it all boils down to one thing: power. The power to control the lives of everybody. That's why I am doing this. That's why I kidnapped the children in that ice cream truck. That's why I set in motion that telephone pole to collapse on Phineas and Ferb. That's why I pushed Candace off that roof."

"You're a monster," PJ growled.

"Says the creature who isn't even a human," the assassin suggested. She received a scowl in return.

"However," she continued, reaching for the torch, "I do believe it will not be a problem that will trouble you for very much longer."

The assassin strode over to PJ and Perry. With calculating coolness she reached the hot flame upward toward PJ first, nearly close enough to singe the paper constraining him. "Anybody up for some platypus flambé?"

"Hold it right there!" cried a voice. Every head in the room turned to the source. Phineas stood firmly at the far end of the room just inside the entrance, Ferb as ever unwavering at his side.

"Oho!" The assassin's eyes flicked to the newcomers, and she could not suppress a look of unrepentant glee. " _Oho!_ "

PJ barked furiously. "Why did you guys come here? It's you she wants! You should have stayed home where it's safe!"

Phineas pretended not to hear him. "Either let our pets go, or else!"

Smiling devilishly, the assassin once again layered on the charm in her voice. "Why, if it isn't my two favorite boys in the whole world! Phineas and Ferb! My, aren't you two just the cutest little things?" She lowered the torch and put it aside, the better to play to their ears the way she had with Candace and Isabella. "I think we are going to have lots of fun together."

Phineas wasn't moved. "I don't think so, not unless you release Perry and PJ and promise never to try and hurt anyone ever again." What happened next came as a surprise to all. As one, Phineas and Ferb reached down and pulled out small, pistol-like ion-blasters and aimed them at the assassin. Clearly they meant business; never before had they built  _weapons_  before.

The assassin paused briefly before changing tactics. She never dropped the sugary sweetness from her voice, however. "I never wanted to hurt anyone," she smoothly asserted. "I was just—trying to get your attention. You see, you are very well known where I come from. I just wanted to meet you, that's all."

"You can drop the act," replied Phineas. "Candace and Isabella told us all about how you tried to trick them into believing you, and it won't work on us." To his side, Ferb nodded in agreement.

"What trick?" The assassin batted her eyelashes innocently. "I really meant them no harm. I just wanted to show them my dollhouse, you see." She held out a hand to gesture towards it. "It's really quite lovely, wouldn't you agree?"

Neither boy turned. "Ferb," Phineas whispered, "fire a warning shot." A red laser blast issued forth from Ferb's weapon, passing harmlessly over the assassin's shoulder.

"These ion-retropulsar rays will instantly strip your molecules apart," declared Phineas. "We built them ourselves."

The woman looked like she'd been splashed in the face with cold water. She wasn't used to being resisted. However, she quickly recovered. "Such smart boys. I should have known you'd be too clever for me." Holding up her hands in surrender, she moved toward the piñatas PJ and Perry were still trapped inside. "I will release them as you wish."

She pulled a remote control out of her pocket and pressed a button. PJ descended to the lobby floor and the assassin cut the string that tied him to the ceiling. She appeared to be cooperating, and the boys began to relax. However, she then pushed another button, and Perry rose high into the air.

"Hey," Phineas yelled, "what gives?"

"Wahahahaha!" The assassin held PJ up, still immobile inside his ridiculous piñata, to use as a shield. "If you shoot now, you'll hit your pathetic guardian! As for the other platypus," she indicated toward Perry, who had risen to well above three stories high now and was nearly at the apex of the pulley. "If you don't do what I say, I'll drop him!"

Phineas and Ferb gasped. The assassin chuckled.

"Now, put down your weapons very slowly, and kick them over to me." The boys obeyed. The assassin picked up one of the ion blasters, putting down PJ as she did so. Turning to point the barrel at the two inventors, her grin was that of a cat's when it had its mouse cornered. "Well, I must say it's been a pleasure, but I'm afraid this is the end for you, my darlings." Her finger squeezed the trigger with the slightest amount of pressure.

"Wait!" screamed a horrified PJ. "I have to tell you something before you do that!"

The assassin's face twitched as she looked at him. "And what might that be?"

PJ took a deep breath. "Before you do anything crazy, I must warn you that we dismantled your Time Machine earlier. If you want to make it back to the future, I suggest you don't laser anybody just yet."

The assassin glanced at the machine and saw that he was telling the truth. The purple light bulb was missing from the top, and there was no control lever either. "Hmm," she thought. "I guess we'll have to fix that, won't we?" Using the same remote, she punched a button, and the piñata PJ was encased in split in two, spilling his cramped body out on the floor.

The assassin kicked him to get him to stand. "Alright, platypus, fix it." She pointed the blaster at him to make her point clear.

PJ stood, grimacing. "The lever is hidden in that janitor's closet," he pointed.

"Go get it," ordered the woman. "And don't try anything funny."

PJ walked slowly and deliberately, partly to show his compliance, partly to give him extra time to think, partly to let the pain in his ribcage recede. He returned seconds later with the lever and took it over to the Time Machine, easily popping it into place.

"And the purple light bulb?"

PJ felt his sides, and suddenly his eyes widened. "Wait," he pled, holding out his hands. "I know I have it here, somewhere…" He dug through his fur, looking everywhere, trying to find it in his pelt's equivalent to pockets. "I swear, I had it right here!" he said hysterically.

"I thought I said no tricks," said the assassin in a disappointed tone.

"It's no trick! I really put it right here, and now it's gone!"

Phineas interrupted. "I've got it right here!" He held the bulb out, and the assassin lowered her aim.

"So nice to see us all working together," she coyly breathed. "Now, hand it over." There was the slightest hesitation on Phineas' part, and she leveled her arm at him. "This isn't the time to play hero." Her finger caressed the trigger as she took aim.

"AAAAIIIIYYYYEEEEEEEE!"

From the rafters, high up, a slender figure swung down from the dimness overhead on a rope in similitude of Tarzan. Candace zoomed into the fray and, like a ninja, swooped down and kicked the ion blaster out of the assassin's hand.

"Go Candace!" encouraged her younger red-headed brother, but unfortunately she had lost all control at that point and was spinning and screaming all the way back up her pendulum-like trajectory, clinging on to the rope for dear life.

The assassin saw the other ion blaster nearby and made to pounce for it, but PJ was too quick. He slid for the blaster a split-second before she did, swinging his tail round to swipe it away and send it skidding far across the floor.

"That was the last straw!" said the angered assassin as she climbed to her feet. She held out the remote once more, and PJ froze. "I have had enough of this!" Her finger mashed down on the button, and Perry's piñata was severed from its tether overhead.

"NO!"

Perry dropped, speedily accelerating for the ground. Candace screamed loudly as she swung, out of control, by on another pass. The woman sneered in pleasure while PJ's face fell in horror. Perry, despite momentarily giving up all thought of preserving his secret identity in front of the boys, was still immobile and could do nothing. Not even Phineas and Ferb could save him now; they were out of time, even if they had tools handy. Perry fell.

All attention on his rapid descent, nobody saw one last person slip into the room to play her part. Isabella only had seconds to think of a plan, but when she needed to be, the Fireside girl could be as resourceful as anyone. When Candace had distracted everyone, she quickly moved to the Time Machine itself and snatched all the cushions she could carry. Not a second later, Perry was released, and Isabella hurriedly stacked all the cushions directly beneath him to break his fall. It wasn't a soft landing, and the impact crushed his piñata-shell. Everyone was holding their breath. Isabella reached through the plastered rubble and picked up Perry, asking, "Are you alright?"

There was no question. Perry gave her the same cross-eyed look he always did and chattered. "Grdrdrdrdrd." A sigh of relief swept through the room.

"Nice catch, Isabella," complimented Phineas.

"Why thank you," she replied with a curtsy.

Everyone's attention turned back to the assassin. She looked over the three children and two platypuses (and paid no attention to Candace while she continued to swing harmlessly and noisily by). "Oh, so you think it's over, right? Think I've played all the cards in my hand? Well, guess again. I still have one card left to play, and it's my best one!" The blonde woman paused dramatically, and everyone braced for the worst. For almost five whole seconds, they stared, waiting for her to make her move. Then, "Bubble!"

The gang tilted their heads and looked at each other, wondering what that meant. Suddenly, the assassin dropped a small gel sac the size of a marble on the floor and crushed it with her heel. Instantly a fog of bubbles flooded the room, clouding the visibility of everyone.

"What the?!" PJ exclaimed, waving his arm in front of him in attempt to see through the swarm of bubbles.

"Where did everyone go?" asked Phineas.

"I'm right here, Phineas!" called Isabella from somewhere.

"Can anybody see?" PJ asked.

"Help me!" screamed Candace from somewhere out of sight. And so it went for almost a minute while the bubbles popped and dwindled. Eventually, enough time had passed that Candace was finally able to stop herself, and she and the others congregated toward the center of the room. "What just happened?" she asked. "And where did the assassin go?"

"Wahahahahaha!" The laugh they were all dreading came from the top of the Time Machine. There stood the woman, the purple bulb in one hand, an ion blaster in the other. "The end is here, my prepubescent friends."

"Hey!" voiced Candace, taking offense.

"And teenager," added the assassin. "Unfortunately I won't be allowing the rest of you to experience the vicissitudes of going through puberty." She bent down and screwed the purple bulb into place before straightening back up again and bringing the blaster to bear on them. Isabella embraced Phineas, deciding that if this was going to be how she went out, she would prefer to be holding him. "Of course," continued the assassin, "some might say that's really a blessing in disguise, not having to deal with all those hormones."

Nobody moved. Perry was wavering between whether or not he should show his family his true identity while he still had the chance, since it looked like there was no way they were getting out of this one. But he knew that neither he nor PJ had any realistic chance of saving them without the assassin getting a shot off.

Hopping down, she continued to point the weapon at the group, homing in on each of them in turn. "Oh dear, it looks like you've run all out of convenient characters to jump out and save you at the last second," she observed. She stopped on PJ, who was shaking in rage. Candace looked like she was on the verge of crying, she was so afraid. She bent down and cradled Ferb, who seemed to be the only one with a stoic expression; nevertheless he wrapped a comforting arm around her as well.

The assassin climbed into the Time Machine, ready to make her getaway. "So, I'm off to make a future that is sad and miserable. Now, who wants to go first?"

Phineas bravely extracted himself from Isabella's arms and stepped forward. "I will."

"No!" pleaded PJ. "Phineas, you have to think of something, like you always do!" He was just about to move forward to stop Phineas, but  _ZAP!_  It was too late. The assassin fired. In a bolt of red light, Phineas vanished and was no more.

"Phineas!" mourned Isabella, Candace, and PJ together. Their cries were cut short as two more blasts hit Ferb and Isabella in turn. Ferb didn't make a noise as he disappeared like his brother. Isabella's scream seemed to echo unadulterated for a whole second after she vanished as well.

PJ's face flushed, and he turned to glower at the assassin. Veins were bulging in his forehead, and his breathing turned into that of an angry bull's. "I'll never let you get away with this!"

"I'm afraid you have no choice!" cackled the assassin, and in a flash she blasted PJ as well. Instinctively, PJ brought up his arms shut his eyes in anticipation of the inevitable. But after a second when he still seemed to sense himself, he opened his eyes and was stunned to find he was still there.

"Stupid thing must be broken," the assassin said, giving the blaster an annoyed look before tossing it aside. "Tata!" She waved at them with a final evil cackle while her other hand pulled the lever, and by the time PJ had regained the presence of mind to stop her, the Time Machine had slipped into the metaphysical timestream between the dimensions and was gone. Candace, PJ, and Perry were suddenly alone and the corridor turned quiet.

As each slowly came to terms with what had just happened, the silence quickly filled with sobs, sniffles, and wails. "I failed!" PJ cried, dropping to all fours while punching the floor in despair. "I failed them! Not just the boys and Isabella, I failed my country! I failed the whole world!"

"It's so unfair," sobbed Candace, a river of tears streaming down her cheeks. "All I ever tried to do was bust them! And they weren't even that bad of kids! But I was always a terrible sister, now look at me! What am I now? I'm nothing! What will I tell Mom this time, when instead of the boys' project being what's missing, it's the boys themselves?" She fell to her knees in sorrow.

Perry was still in mindless pet mode, but his eyes weren't crossed anymore. They had tears of their own, and he let his head droop so they could dribble down his beak into a small puddle on the floor. For him, there was no reason to fight evil anymore. His whole world was gone.

So sad and so sorry was their state that they almost didn't hear it at first. It was as a voice from heaven. "Why are you all crying? We won, didn't we?"

All three hushed their cries and looked up. Miraculously, a resurrected Phineas, Ferb, and Isabella stood before them, completely unharmed. Phineas had his usual playful smile adorned; Ferb, his enigmatic expression; and Isabella, a look of wonder. The three on the floor couldn't decide if they were seeing ghosts or the real McCoys.

There was no question they were real when Candace dove for her brothers, followed by Perry, then finally PJ as they jumped up from the ground to hug the three very real, very living, very tangible, survivors. Their tears were all replaced with tears of joy.

"Phineas! Ferb! I'm so glad you both are alright!" Candace wept, holding her brothers tightly.

"We're fine! Honest!" replied a smothered Phineas. "It was all part of the plan."

"I was so scared you and Ferb and Isabella were—"

"I know. I'm sorry we frightened you, but we're really okay!"

It was a tender, moist reunion; one that lasted long enough for everybody to hug everybody, then hug everybody again. But after a few minutes PJ wanted an explanation, so when Candace was finally able to let go, he just shook his head and chuckled. "You sly dogs," he said, giving Phineas and Ferb each a glowing look of admiration. "How did you do it?"

"C'mon, did you really think we would make ion-ray blasters that would disintegrate all someone's molecules?" Phineas asked rhetorically. "Those blasters we built were literally  _built to do nothing_ ; they were just covers. These are the real inventions." He and Ferb held out thin electronic boxes the size of a deck of cards they had been carrying in their pockets. "They endow you with complete invisibility. We wanted the assassin to go back to her own time thinking she had succeeded in her plans, so that she wouldn't just keep going further back in time or anything until she finished the job."

"That's actually really smart," PJ said, impressed. "Well, that was really good acting, all of you. Especially you, Candace, I really thought you believed they were, you know, gone, and everything."

"That's because I did," Candace explained. "I didn't know about the plan."

"Neither did I," Isabella said. "That scream when I thought she hit Phineas was real. Then she hit me, and I kept screaming because I thought I was toast. Phineas was smart enough to clamp a hand over my mouth and share his invisibility with me, otherwise the plan would have failed." She sighed as she zoned back into Phineasland at the memory of Phineas holding her in his arms to make her invisible too, whispering in her ear what was really going on, calming her down, and just being there for her; even though she couldn't actually see him at the time.

"Wait," PJ said, backtracking. "Neither of you knew about the plan? Then how did you both know to come at the right moments to make it work, like when Isabella saved Perry and when Candace came swinging down like Tarzan—or, I guess, to be more appropriate—Jane?"

"Yeah, what are you guys doing here?" Phineas asked, suddenly a little upset. "I thought we made it clear that you two needed to stay at the house where it was safe?"

"Well, we got Isabella some medicine," Candace said, a guilty look crossing her face.

"And, I was feeling a lot better," Isabella admitted.

"So, Isabella made me—" Candace received an elbow in the ribcage from the senior patrol leader at that moment— "I mean,  _together,_  we decided to come help. We got here in my Neddlington Nymph."

"It was really all Candace's idea," Isabella modestly added. "She told me she was going to distract the assassin and that I needed to use that time to find a way to help Perry."

Phineas' look changed to one of understanding. "Well, thanks. I'm glad you guys are all right, and I guess it turned out we really did need your help back there." He gave both girls another hug, causing Isabella to swoon a little. "And I'm sure Perry says thanks to you too."

"Grdrdrdrdrdrd."

Everyone laughed—they couldn't help it. It wasn't that it was all that humorous; laughter is simply the best medicine. It is the symptom of relief and peace.

* * *

"This is Gordon Gutsofanemu, continuing coverage of our earlier report. The cats that swept through the park earlier today have finally dispersed, and while authorities are still examining the cause of the outbreak, they have determined that it is safe once again for all your planned Fourth of July activities, although in the future it is advised that we all take greater care to monitor our frisky feline friends. The city of Danville has given us confirmation they will be on schedule with their fireworks this evening; and, as always, every citizen in Danville is invited to watch. In other news, Bobbi Fabulous, guitar player for the famous band Love Händel, broke his pinky toe earlier today while getting run over by a shopping cart. No word yet on how this new development will affect his ability to perform with the band or his flourishing hairstyling business."

* * *

The dim pale glow over the western horizon receded slowly to the onslaught of stars arriving to dot the night sky. It was pleasantly warm, and the grass felt cool to the touch. Loudspeakers filled the atmosphere with patriotic music. All across the park, people had spread out on blankets and lawn chairs to watch the fireworks and enjoy tasty treats.

Signaling the close of day a cannon fired, and a sparkling rocket shot into the air. A deafening boom shook the sky with glittering stars of gold, and a cheer rang out through the crowd. The show had begun.

More cannon blasts rocked the earth like thunder. More brilliant flares ascended toward the heavens before cleaving the sky with bursting showers of light. Reds, greens, oranges, and purples all in turn illuminated the dark in pompous pops and boisterous breaks. Beautiful flowers, sweeping streams, shining stars, and many more exotic and wonderful shapes captured the breath of the spectators sprawled down below. A sense of awe and majesty overtook the crowd, and for several minutes they sat in reverence, watching the show masterfully crafted in the firmaments.

Candace was sitting cross-legged on the grass, neck craned back with her hair flowing smoothly down her spine, when Jeremy joined her from his family nearby.

"Hey," he said coolly.

"Hey," returned Candace happily, taking great pleasure at his company. She took her boyfriend's hand, and he grasped back. For a while they sat together in silence, watching the display; however, that changed when without warning Jeremy brought her head around with his hand and kissed her under the starry sky. New fireworks went off inside Candace as she kissed him back.

Not far away, little Suzy Johnson seethed in anger and jealousy as she watched the two shadowy silhouettes meet at the lips.

Phineas was laid out on the soft grass nearby with Ferb and Isabella on either side of him, enjoying the fireworks together. Perry was sprawled at their feet, and PJ was back in his overalls disguise.

While Isabella sincerely appreciated the fireworks, her attention was split between them and one other, triangular-shaped object of her desire. Ever so cautiously, she slipped her hand over the grassy ground—taking care to check and double-check that Ferb would not be in the way this time—and found Phineas' hand. Praying for luck, she slipped her fingers down his palm and interlocked them in the grooves between his own. Fountains of ecstasy poured into her chest when his fingers curled around her knuckles in snug embrace! She couldn't contain her feelings any longer. With her free hand, Isabella yanked Phineas' collar toward her and planted a big, fat kiss on his mouth, expertly avoiding his geometrically anatomic nose in the process.

"Isabella!" Phineas reacted, though she could see by the lights overhead that he seemed pleased.

"Happy Fourth of July, Phineas," she said, nestling back down into his shoulder.

After a moment, Phineas let his head rest back down on the grass beside her. "Happy Fourth of July, Isabella," he answered. "Happy Fourth of July, indeed."

* * *

Danville, USA  
July 5, 2014

Phineas, together with Ferb, Candace, and Isabella, had convinced PJ to stay the night with them before returning to his own time. PJ had gratefully accepted, being thoroughly exhausted after a very long day. Although the boys invited him to sleep with them and Perry in their room, he insisted on staying on the couch.

Morning broke bright and early, and Linda—who neither saw through PJ's disguise nor had any problems with him staying the night, assuming him to be one of the boys' friends—made them breakfast. Isabella arrived in time to join them, since she wanted to see PJ off too. Even Candace was able to push herself out of bed early to see, although she spent the first couple minutes yawning deeply. Phineas mostly asked PJ questions about what the future was like— "Are there any notable advances in atomic physics research?" "Which college are Ferb and I supposed to go to?" "Do they ever make a sequel to  _Horse in a Bookcase?_ "

Every time, PJ's answer was the same. "How many times do I have to say it? I can't tell you anything about the future!"

"What about Area 51? Has it been declassified yet?"

PJ finally had it. "Oh, yeah," he said. "Turns out the UFO's were actually gigantic blocks of cheese that had become self-aware and were trying to achieve world domination."

"Really?" Phineas asked gullibly.

PJ tried and failed to hold a straight face for longer than a second. He snorted loudly, and everyone burst into laughter at the confused look Phineas gave him. "I'm joking!" PJ chortled between guffaws.

Finally, breakfast ended, and the time for good-bye was at hand. Everyone filed from the kitchen to the living room. PJ made his way past them one-by-one on his progress toward the door.

"Good-bye, PJ," Phineas said as he and Ferb shook hands with the platypus in turn. "When you go back to the future, look us up. You can come hang out with Ferb and me any time you want."

"Thanks," replied PJ, before advancing to Isabella next.

"Thanks for saving our lives," Isabella said, flinging her arms around PJ to hug him. As she did so, she took a moment to whisper into his ear, "and thanks for helping me and Phineas get together."

PJ patted her shoulder and moved to Candace.

"Er, good luck in the future, and everything," Candace said, not knowing what else to do.

PJ nodded. He didn't know Candace as well as the others. "Good luck yourself."

Last, PJ stopped and looked at Perry, who was watching them all from his bed in the corner. "Take care of them, Perry." Although none of the kids noticed, Perry's eyes flickered briefly in understanding.

"Grdrdrdrdrd," he chattered.

PJ turned and saluted the others one last time. At that moment, Phineas fumbled with something in his pockets and pulled out an envelope. "Almost forgot," the boy said, handing the paper over to PJ. "I want you to have this." Nodding, PJ accepted it and slipped it in his furry 'pocket', an intrigued look in his eyes.

"Good-bye, all." With that, he opened the door and stepped out into the morning rays.

It was during the next several minutes of quiet reflection, afforded him during the time it took to sneak back to the location where he had hidden his own time machine, that PJ realized how much he had changed with this mission. He had never felt this way before about moving on to his next task—like he had finally found something he really liked and didn't want to change. Phineas and Ferb and their friends and family… They were different than anyone else he had ever met. They treated him differently than anyone else he had ever met. In a good way. Truth be told, he was, in fact, sorry to leave.

Then he remembered the assassin was still out there. He still had a job to do, and there was no telling how long it would take before she realized that she had failed to change the future at all. All that remained of his mission now was to find her. And he would make her pay for what she tried to do to the boys, he promised himself as he climbed up into the cockpit. No matter what it took.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Danville, USA  
July 5, 2049

There did not appear to be anything out of the ordinary in PJ's first glimpse of the Tri-State Area. No darkly ominous skies or ashy gray landscapes of ruined buildings, the images he would have anticipated had his mission failed and brought about some strange dystopian future. The cheerful city was exactly as he remembered it, and that confirmed he'd succeeded.

The sun was still rising in the eastern sky when he entered the Danville Museum. He easily found his way back to the room exhibiting the Time Machine like he'd been there yesterday—since, in a sense, he had—and noted not much had changed. Well, there was that new wing, but technically that had been completed over fifteen years ago, so it wasn't really new anymore.

Just as he remembered it, the Time Machine sat quietly waiting in that same corner, rarely noticed by visitors. If he didn't do something about it, the assassin could come back at any time and use it to finish the job. It would be easy for her to slip away to another time where she could find the gang alone and vulnerable if he didn't either destroy it or call in a government team to confiscate it right away. No doubt she had realized by now that she had failed; a quick look at the news or search of the internet would easily confirm that. It was not only possible, but highly likely, that as soon as she realized this, the assassin might come back to make another attempt. That gave PJ an idea.

The remainder of the day he sat resting in the museum, keeping a careful eye on the Time Machine. People came and people went; a few adults gave PJ dirty looks but never bothered him. Yet there was no sign of the blonde haired woman.

The crowds were thinning as closing time approached. PJ found himself relaxing the more they dispersed until he was shaken awake from a brief afternoon catnap by a security guard.

"Sir," the guard said, "I'm afraid that you're going to have to leave."

"I'm not a pet!" PJ exclaimed, half alert. It was a common nuisance he'd dealt with all his life, and was somewhat of a touchy subject for him. He was also a little angry at himself for falling asleep. "I'm a citizen of the United States, just like you!"

"No, it's not that. It's closing time."

"Oh." PJ rubbed his eyes and saw the orange glow of the setting sun through the windows. He looked at the man. Well, now that he stopped and thought about it, the guard still looked more like a boy. He had a goofy, childlike look about him, like he'd drop everything and play a game of catch if someone asked him.

The guard was Caucasian and in his early twenties, PJ judged. His face was clean shaven, and his eyes were as deep a blue as the ocean. He was tall and athletically built; while his muscles weren't exactly large, they were well enough defined to show that he kept a toned physique. But the message his body language sent was overwhelmingly one of comfort. The way he tended to always lean against a nearby wall or desk or chair, the way his loose-fitting clothes allowed him a fuller range of motion, even the way he kept his short and messy hair, all pointed to the fact that he cared more about feeling free and comfortable than he did about impressing others with how he looked. His appearance was still neat and clean, but had the air of a fun-loving and energetic puppy. In a way, that made others feel more comfortable around him, too.

"Like I said, we're closed now. You will please follow me to the exit," the guard said. Not rudely, simply matter-of-factly.

PJ shook his head and pulled out his badge. "I work for the Secret Service, and it is a matter of national security that I stay here tonight."

The man raised an eyebrow, but didn't question him. "Oh? And what is this matter?"

"It's a long story," PJ said. "Go ahead and clear the rest of the museum out. After the doors are locked, I will speak to you about it more thoroughly."

The guard nodded and left PJ alone in the room. PJ stretched and went over to inspect the Time Machine for the zillionth time today. Once again, he found nothing that would aid him in catching the assassin. No strands of hair left to identify her DNA, no fingerprints that were clearly visible, no luck whatsoever. He sighed and concluded that the assassin was too smart to come back to the scene of the crime. All that was left to do was call his superiors in Washington to send a team to confiscate the Time Machine and disassemble it.

The guard soon returned. PJ noted that he walked unusually softly for a human, always remaining light on his toes rather than blundering along as most people do. He didn't say anything, he just looked at PJ and waited for him to speak.

The platypus got straight to the point. "Yesterday, someone used this Time Machine to go back in time without authorization," he began, pointing at the Time Machine as he did so. "As I'm sure you know, all time travel is regulated by the government. This Time Machine is not registered; I don't know how it got here, but it's here. My investigation has led me to find that the culprit is a blonde woman in her thirties. Have you seen anyone that matches that description in the past several days?"

There was a moment as the guard thought before he answered. "I don't think I have," he said slowly. "But, this museum was closed yesterday for the Fourth of July. There wasn't anybody here to use the Time Machine."

"She must have broken in, then."

The guard snapped his fingers. "I did notice one door this morning that was suspiciously unlocked. There were no signs of forced entry—because it was like someone was already inside and was trying to get out."

"That must have been her," PJ said. "She probably returned from the past sometime in the night. Do you have surveillance systems that might have caught her?"

"Right this way," nodded the man. PJ followed him to an unobtrusive door and watched him slip a key in the lock before smoothly swinging it wide open by the handle. "Although I must admit, our surveillance here is ancient. High definition 2D video cameras from the 2010s. Nothing like the state-of-the-art laser sensors with motion detection and 3D holographic projections like they have at casinos these days."

They walked into a small room of TV screens. They covered an entire wall, displaying pictures of all the various rooms in the building. PJ was unimpressed. TV screens weren't very common anymore; most entertainment came in some form of virtual reality these days.

"Can you find her?" was all he asked.

The man took a seat before a laptop and typed for a moment. "I'm bringing the Time Machine up on that screen, there." PJ followed his finger to the image of the Time Machine. The guard continued to speak as his fingers flew across the keypad. "That Time Machine exhibit has always fascinated me, but for some reason people don't talk about it much around here. All I've heard is that it was the first time machine ever built. That's probably why it's unregistered, I'd guess the government doesn't even know about it. Its inventor, Xavier Onassis, was said to have arrived from his own time in it around fifteen years ago, although his love of corndogs prevented him from ever exploring other time periods with it. His invention fell into disrepair soon after; I didn't know that anyone has ever tried to fix it or that it ever worked until now. Who knows? Maybe Phineas and Ferb fixed it when they were kids? They grew up right here in the Tri-State Area, you know."

"I know," PJ said.

"Yep. That's Danville's claim to fame. The greatest scientific minds since Einstein, Newton, or even Galileo hale from our humble neck of the woods." A dreamy look came over the guard's face for a brief moment. He quickly snapped out of it, however, and returned to his work. "Now, let's rewind the feed. If the Time Machine was really used, we should have footage where it is missing from the room." After a few seconds, he hit a key and the recording played. The corner of the room the machine usually occupied was empty.

"Looks like you weren't lying," the guard said, noting the date and time he was seeing. He carefully advanced the footage until the bulky machine popped into view. "By Jove," he exclaimed, "Watson, I do believe we've cracked the case!"

A woman with curly blonde hair emerged from the machine and crept her way out of view of the screen, but not before the guard captured the image and saved the recording. "Is this your time traveler?" he asked, blowing up the image.

"That's her," PJ said in a barely audible voice. "That's the assassin."

"Assassin?" The man looked at PJ, putting two and two together. "Wait, do you mean she went back in time to  _assassinate_  someone? Like, maybe, the President? I mean, you did say you were Secret Service, right?"

PJ cringed. "Curse my big mouth," he said. "Yes, okay; but that is all classified, do you understand? You can't tell anybody about this!"

"Hey, man, you can trust me," replied the man. PJ felt he could believe him. "But who is she?"

"That's the million-dollar question," PJ stated.

"Let me run a facial recognition scan," said the guard. "Give it a minute, this hunk of junk is very old and slow. How our ancestors ever survived waiting on measly Gigabyte processors is beyond me. Here we are. We have a ninety-eight percent match. Sending the data to the local authorities…"

"NO!" shouted PJ. "What part of 'classified' do you not understand?"

The guard gave the platypus a smirk. "Just kidding!" Something about his playful, lop-sided grin reminded PJ of Phineas. He couldn't help but like this guy.

"Um, thanks for your help," PJ said, transferring a copy of the readout to his own futuristic electronic device.

"Don't mention it." PJ glanced at the name badge pinned to his chest. The guard's name was Michael.

"Right. Listen, Michael, I can't help but notice, but there's something different about you." PJ had trouble putting his thoughts into words, like they were caught on the tip of his tongue.

Michael winked. "Good luck, PJ. Perhaps we shall meet again." He held out a hand, and PJ shook it. So quickly then did PJ exit the room and turn his attention to the readout that he didn't even notice he had never told Michael his name.

The assassin's name seemed strangely familiar. PJ was struck with a striking stupor of thought all the way back to his transport. He was certain he knew her name from somewhere! When he climbed in to his flying car of the future, he quickly turned to the wireless onboard internet service and did a search. What he found floored him. Suddenly, he knew why the name rang familiar. The traitorous assassin was very prominent, indeed. PJ's mind went numb as he came to grasp the baffling revelation. The woman was not only a major player in the political leagues of Washington, she was a special advisor to the very President she had gone back in time to assassinate! PJ stared at her picture in bafflement, stunned that he hadn't recognized her before.

He was looking at the face of the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, perhaps the largest and most famous spy agency in the world. Her name was Suzy Johnson.

* * *

Fairfax County, Virginia  
July 6, 2049

It was approaching midnight. Suzy Johnson's house was on a grassy knoll outside of Fairfax, not even a dozen miles from the Capital. An old fashioned Victorian style home made of brick, it wasn't the largest or the grandest in the spread-out neighborhood, but it did have the roomiest lawn, meaning there was lots of space separating it from the neighbors. A plethora of trees dotted the landscaping, one of which PJ took cover behind as he scoped out the building. He did not find any security guards on the premises, but he did take note of a small shed hiding in the shadows off the west wing. It was possible the shed was for security, although it was just as likely she used an electronic system and didn't keep any bodyguards. In which case it was just a shed, and nothing to be concerned about at all.

Most of the lights in the house were on, casting beams of yellow out the windows and giving PJ ample light to see by. Suzy lived alone, being single; and he did not see anybody cross in front of the windows, either, leading him to conclude that there was nobody else in the home right now. Which made sense. She had no reason to increase security. She could not have known PJ had found her.

Once he had discovered her identity, the rest had been a cinch. As head of the CIA, she spent most of her time in either Langley at CIA HQ or in Washington to counsel with the big-whig politicians there. He'd tracked down her address and planned a late-night stakeout to bring her down. PJ suspected it was her position as Director that gave her the intelligence resources she had needed to stage an assassination attempt on the President almost thirty years before she was even elected. What impressed him the most was how Suzy had made it to the top of the chain several years before her fortieth birthday. Then he remembered the way she had demonstrated her ability to control people with her cutesy act and disarmingly charming voice, and knew she must have used her powers of persuasion to claw her way up so quickly. She was truly a dangerous foe. The only thing that didn't make sense was why she would betray her country after devoting the kind of time and energy needed to be given charge of the CIA. Well, he hoped to find out soon enough.

There was a tall tree that grew near the side of the house. PJ planned out a way up the tree that would settle him on the branch that reached closest to the side of the building, silently crept to its trunk, and climbed. The branch he saw was slender and would not have supported the weight of anything less than a small child. Being a platypus, that didn't matter much in his case; he didn't weigh much. He figured if he could be able to climb just far enough, he could jump from the tree and catch himself on the rain gutter. This might have seemed like an oversight on the part of Suzy, had she ever inspected the tree to determine whether someone could break into her house by climbing it—but not so much considering the branches this high were too thin to hold any adult. Of course, no one could have predicted a platypus would attempt it.

PJ carefully judged the distance and leaped. There was no sound made as he caught hold of the rain gutter and pulled himself up. He crawled on all fours to the closest dark windowsill, checked through the glass to ascertain that nobody was inside, and dropped down onto the windowsill ledge. He quickly tried the window, but it was locked. A cursory glance told him the lock was not heavy, only a thin metal hook that was holding down the bottom pane from sliding up. PJ tucked his fingers around the frame of the window and pulled up, incrementally increasing the level of force he applied to the window an ounce at a time so he applied just enough pressure to break the lock without slamming the window on the rebound. His patience was rewarded and the lock snapped, and he cautiously slid the window open a crack and ducked inside.

The room he entered was a guest bedroom. Stuffed animals with unlidded, sightless eyes stared blankly from a shelf near the ceiling. A comfy bed in the center had a quilt embroidered with flower-shaped stitching patterns that was illuminated by the light coming from the hallway through the open door. PJ paused at the doorway to look and listen.

He didn't see any signs of movement in the hallway, but he thought he heard muffled sounds coming from downstairs. He carefully moved from shadow to shadow, planning out each movement before he made it and checking what far corners of the rooms might expose him, should there be any guards watching for intruders. But for so many lights being on in different hallways and rooms, there was not a soul anywhere. The big house appeared to be empty. PJ moved meticulously onward.

Soon he was close enough to tell what the noise he heard from upstairs was. The Experience Wall (a futuristic, virtual reality extension of what used to be known as a TV) was on; some late-night drama that contributed background noise in the form of an arguing couple and ambulance sirens. Then a new noise made the platypus stop. It was water flowing from a faucet. Suzy was in the kitchen!

There she was. PJ saw her down the hall from the entertainment room. Her back was turned to him as she washed a dish. With his footsteps camouflaged by the sink, he crept up behind her until he was almost on her. Then Suzy glanced out the window in front of her, but because the light was on and it was dark outside it acted more like a mirror, and PJ groaned as he made eye contact with her. Suzy whipped around with a warlike screech and threw the dish at him like a Frisbee. PJ ducked and rolled out of the way, jumping to his feet to take a fighting stance.

"You should have known I would eventually find you,  _Director Johnson._ "

Suzy scowled. Then she put on her usual playful act. "I admit, I may have underestimated your intelligence, platypus. That trick you pulled to make me think that blaster actually worked on the kids was well played."

PJ smirked at the memory. "Actually, I had nothing to do with that. The boys concocted and carried out that whole scheme on their own. You were actually outsmarted by a couple of kids."

"Eh, I'll take that over an animal," she sighed. PJ growled. "Still, we do have some unfinished business to attend to. Won't you sit down and we can resolve our disputes over a nice cup of tea."

PJ tensed, knowing she was trying to sweet talk him and lure him into a false sense of security. Never dropping his guard, he said, "I'm placing you under arrest for illegal use of an unregistered time machine and attempting to assassinate the future President of the United States as well as others."

The assassin shook her head and chided. "Tsk, tsk. If you were really so smart, you would have found out by now."

Part of him knew her remark was just another trick she was using to find a way to get inside his head, but part of him was suddenly curious. "What do you mean?" he asked. "Figured what out?"

A sly smile crossed her face. "I can't tell you. I promised them I wouldn't."

"Promised who? Promised what?"

Suzy's eyes danced as she teased him with information. "The ones who betrayed you."

He couldn't tell if she was stalling or not. She seemed so confident, he almost couldn't doubt her. PJ shook his head. No, he couldn't listen to her. He'd seen her do this every time she wanted to manipulate somebody to do what she wanted. He had to fight back.

"You're lying! You're the one who's the traitor! I can't believe someone in your position would actually make an attempt on the President's life!"

"Oh well," the assassin sighed. "I guess it's the hard way, then." She snatched an egg beater off the countertop next to her and held it out like a sword. "En garde!"

PJ glanced to his side and grabbed a wooden spoon off the table. "Time for you to pay for what you did. Hiyaa!" With that, he sprang forward while slashing with his makeshift rapier. Suzy parried skillfully. PJ jumped on the countertop so that he was at her level, and the battle that ensued was ferocious. The two combatants danced across the kitchen, swishing and lashing with their weapons in lightning fast blurs. PJ had the greater hand-to-hand skill and was speedier, but Suzy had longer arms and more body weight to throw into her attacks. With a vicious strike, she brought her egg beater down and split his wooden spoon, ruining her beater's metal spokes in the process. Both weapons rendered useless, PJ charged and tackled her to the floor. They went rolling out the kitchen and into the entry way inside the front door. Lamps were shattered, chairs knocked over, and debris strewn about as they tussled. They crashed through the front door and out onto the dim porch, when finally Suzy kicked PJ off of her. He flew over the side of the porch and landed softly enough on the grassy lawn.

PJ stopped to catch his breath and let his eyes adjust to the night. Suzy's hair was frayed and frizzled from the skirmish, and she was breathing as heavy as he was. She rose to her feet at the same time he did. "I really hate having to do this," she said, though the look on her face betrayed that she was really expecting to enjoy it a lot. "Tell you what, platypus; if you surrender now, I'll spare you from a very painful end. But only if you swear allegiance to the Conspirium. I see that you would make a powerful ally."

The way she capitalized the word 'Conspirium'—whatever that meant—made PJ's fur stand on edge. "What are you even talking about?" he spat.

Suzy just grinned wickedly. "Last cha-ance," she sang. PJ crouched in preparation for another assault, but then she did something he did not expect. Suzy stuck her fingers in her mouth and whistled.

"Come here, girl! We've got an intruder!"

PJ was confused at first about who she was talking to. Suddenly, a loud whine (or was it a yawn?) emanated from the shed he'd seen earlier. It was off to his side now, from where he stood beside the porch. Casting his eyes about to see what had caused the noise, PJ discerned from his closer vantage point that it wasn't really a shed at all. It was a dog house; the biggest he had ever seen.

His blood turned cold when he distinctly saw two yellow eyes materialize inside the dark chasm. They were at his level at first, but whatever imperceptible body they were attached to began to rise as the monster lurking inside roused from its slumber. The eyes ascended higher and higher until they were at the height of a tall man. Then they came for him.

PJ's mind went blank until he was jolted out of shock by tripping over his own backpedaling webbed feet. The monster emerged from the dog house and came into view by the lights of the porch. Its fur was black and fluffy. Its fangs were long and bared. Its deep growls reverberated from a massive ribcage and indicated its size was enormous. The beast walked anthropomorphically with paws the size of PJ's whole body outstretched for him, the long sharp claws catching the light like the glint of a mirror.

At first, he thought he was looking at a bear. Then, as it advanced more fully into the light, PJ saw furry pom-poms on its wrists and dangling earflaps. That was when he recognized what had been living in that shed: a gigantic, monstrous poodle. Instantly, PJ knew what he was up against. After all, he had been the first.

Between the way the mutated poodle walked on its hind legs, the uncharacteristic size and muscularity, and the opposability of the thumbs, PJ could tell exactly where this creature came from. It could not have been born naturally. PJ was looking at one of his animal-cloned siblings. Born in a test tube under the unloving (yet not necessarily un- _nurturing_ ) care of a scientific laboratory. Genetically manipulated so that certain stronger traits would be dominant. Endowed with human-like intelligence and the maximum potential for physical fitness. However, this canine was clearly not meant to interact normally with humans the way PJ was, with linguistic abilities and a sense of consciousness. It had a sick look in its eyes, a thirst to tear and maim and shred. It had been turned into a monster, both on the inside and out. PJ suddenly knew why Suzy didn't bother to keep any human bodyguards around.

The mutant poodle advanced on PJ like a lion approaching a sloth. PJ crawled backward at a frustratingly slow pace, never averting his eyes from the beast. The chain attaching the monster by a collar to the outhouse reached its end with a yank and she leaned towering over PJ, straining close enough almost to reach him. Finally he pushed himself up and sprinted toward the nearest tree. Behind, he heard a sickening snap that must have been the chain breaking when the poodle bounded after him. The hound bayed into the otherwise quiet night, sending shivers up his spine. He scampered up the tree and felt it shudder when the claws raked across the bark PJ had been straddling only nanoseconds before.

Suzy burst into her wicked laughter from the porch below, and PJ twisted around to see her once he was at a safe enough elevation. Her silhouette was a dark outline before the gleaming light behind her so that her face was hidden in shadow, but he could imagine the contorted smile she always wore. "I'm afraid this is the end for you, my slippery friend. When Sheila sets her sights on you, there's nothing that can save you."

The terror intensified when PJ looked back down. 'Sheila' seemed to be calculating something in her head. She was looking at the crotch of the thickest branch with a curious eye. PJ watched her crouch and jump up to latch on with her paws, those anthropomorphic hands working in her favor to grip and pull as she swung a leg up. She didn't climb with the grace PJ had, outweighing him as she did by a factor that was probably well over fifty. But sinking those claws into the bark lended enough leverage to pull herself up and find PJ once again in close range.

PJ began to climb higher, realizing for the second time that night that the lighter branches would be to his advantage. But 'She' was faster than he anticipated. PJ was almost thrown out of the tree when her paw yanked him by the tail, and he only managed to hang on to the branch he was gripping by a miracle. PJ kicked out with his poisonous ankle barbs, sinking one deep into the matted flesh of the mutant poodle's hand. She let go with a scream of agony that curled his fur. But he climbed on without turning back.

All too quickly, the branches thinned into smaller and smaller twigs. PJ was running out of room to go, and She was not far below. When at last there was nowhere further he could climb, he looked down. She could only make it about halfway up the tree before the branches became too thick to push through and too thin to hold her up. She was just watching, calculating. PJ held his breath as She settled on a new idea. Reaching out to the base of the stem PJ's weight was supported by, She began to sway the branch back and forth. The movement on her end was slight, but by the time it reached PJ, it was significantly amplified to the violence of a bucking bronco. He had to hold on tight to keep from being shaken out of the tree. Once his webbed feet slipped, as they weren't very convenient for gripping, but he held fast with his front paws and was able to recover and pull himself back up. After a couple minutes of this, when it became apparent he wasn't going to fall on his own accord, PJ was horrified to see the mutant use her strength to start tearing the limb clean off. She was going to literally rip him out of the tree!

It happened even faster than he imagined. The mutant's strength was incredible, and with a roar she snapped the branch in her hands. PJ's stomach dropped. He along with the rest of the splayed wingspan of the branch crashed through the foliage all the way down to the ground. Frantically, PJ extricated himself from the heap of leaves and wood, but not before She landed catlike at the trunk of the tree and pounced. It felt like getting hit by a bus. PJ felt his ribs crack as he was slammed against the ground by those massive paws, knocking the wind out of him. Sheila's foul breath was all the air he could try to suck back in, but his lungs were slowly being crushed under her weight like a boa constrictor's squeeze.

Stars were popping into his field of vision, clogging his sight of the already black night. A darker void appeared before him when jaws that could rip him apart gaped open and went for his throat. PJ's instinctive final movement was an act of sheer desperation. Already beginning to black out, he stretched a hand into the space above where those teeth had been, as recorded in the recollection of his mind's eye seconds ago. By pure luck, his outstretched fingers jabbed into the mutant's eyes, dead center.

Sheila howled in a fit of pain and rage. She tore away in recoil, leaving a heavy scratch across his chest. PJ sucked in gasp after painful gasp of air, resupplying the needed oxygen to his bloodstream for his vision to return and show him the pathetic image of the mutant poodle writhing on the ground a few feet away, trying her best to wipe away at her eyes with those gargantuan mittens.

This was his only chance. Adrenaline blocked away the pain for a moment as PJ sprang into action. He dove onto the mass of muscle and fur and wrapped his arms tightly around her neck from behind, locking his hands together by his wrists, and squeezed. The arms of the poodle tried to reach up and throw him over her shoulders, but he latched his feet under her armpits to become immovable. She tried rolling on him to weaken his resolve, yet PJ only squoze tighter, cutting off her windpipe completely. For a tense minute of struggling, the mutant poodle's strength declined slowly but steadily until, finally, PJ felt her lose consciousness. Exhausted, he pushed her limp body off him and wearily took to his feet.

The assassin's jaw sank to the ground.

"I must say," PJ panted, "I don't believe I have had the pleasure of seeing you speechless before."

At that moment, however, the Secret Service agent was blinded by a searchlight. "Put your hands on your head," an electronically amplified voice emitted from a bullhorn commanded. "Get on your knees and put your hands on your head!"

"I am Suzy Johnson, the Director of the CIA!" Suzy shouted at the armada of government cars that were now arriving on the scene. "This platypus attacked me! He tried to assassinate me!"

"No, she's lying," PJ tried to say, but found himself too wiped out. A small platoon of fully armed and outfitted officers spilled into view as more spotlights shone onto him from every angle. All their weapons were trained on him.

"She's the assassin," he tried again, but three men converged on him and pinned him to the ground, handcuffing him in the process. PJ was too weak to resist at this point. He swiveled his head to see Suzy ordering the teams of men around like she was in charge; she must have called for them somehow while he was distracted with her mutated pet. Confusion, exhaustion, and his injuries combined against him, forcing him to succumb to syncope.


	8. Chapter 8

 

Chapter 8

Headquarters, Department of Homeland Security  
Washington, D. C.  
July 15, 2049

The prisoner, having concluded his story, exhaled deeply. Across the table, his two listeners stared back, studying him carefully. A still quiet overcame the heavily sound-proofed room. It seemed to make the interrogator uncomfortable. He perfunctorily shuffled his papers around and dumped them back into a manila folder in his hands. Slapping it noisily back down on the metal table, he piercingly looked the prisoner in the eyes.

"I've sat here at this desk for many years, and I have heard many individuals plead their case," said he. "But that has to be by far the most extravagant, fantastical, absurd poppycock fairy tale I have ever heard."

"You don't believe him?" asked the lawyer, shocked.

"Not one word." The man folded his arms across his chest and leaned back. "Criminals have a reputation for being very creative with their stories."

"But it was so detailed," objected the lawyer.

"I'm sure he spent weeks on end planning out the intricacies of it all," the interrogator brushed aside. "But surely you wouldn't take the word of some animal over the good reputation of Director Johnson?"

The lawyer didn't look like she knew how to respond to that. "Well," she cast her eyes at PJ. "Do you have any proof she is the assassin?"

The prisoner smirked. "I thought you'd never ask." He reached into the mystical pocket space behind his back in which platypuses are prone to storing their various personal objects and pulled out a photograph, sliding it onto the center of the desk. The interrogator and lawyer leaned over to inspect it.

It was as plain as day. The assassin was standing next to the Time Machine in the museum of Danville 2014, pointing a pistol-shaped device at those young versions of Phineas and Ferb. The two humans stared at the picture in shock.

PJ threw down another photo on top of the first. This one was taken from an aerial vantage point and portrayed the assassin in the act of luring Candace and Isabella down an alley underneath a metal cage carefully positioned to trap them. Another photo depicted her threatening to light the piñata inside of which PJ was entombed on fire. The evidence was undeniable. The assassin was unmistakably Suzy Johnson, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Both the interrogator and the lawyer were able to easily recognize her.

"You are probably wondering why these pictures weren't taken with a 3D camera," PJ said. "That's because they were taken before those were invented. Remember that camera Agent P kept stored inside his fedora at all times? The one he used to show me all the projects Phineas and Ferb had built that summer? That was how I got these photos. His camera is always with him, snapping pics from under his fedora during each and every mission. Before I left, he agreed to let me take them."

The lawyer sat back in her chair, comprehension dawning on her face. "Suzy Johnson, the Director of the CIA, tried to assassinate the President and her family," she said, almost as if she could scarcely believe it. She stood up suddenly. "We have to get this news out fast, before she strikes again! We have to warn the President, the other agencies, and the Secret Service; not to mention the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the leaders of Congress, and while we're at it let's get  _her_  face on every billboard from here to San Francisco!" She pointed at the stack of photos. "We have to catch her before it's too late! We—what are you doing?"

The interrogator picked up the photographs as if he were about to inspect them more closely, then everyone gasped as he ripped them to shreds and dropped the bits on the floor. "Director Johnson was attacked by this animal driven by delusion and the natural basal instincts and uncivilized tendencies all animals share," he said, never looking up from the table. "The animal will be dealt with severely for its crimes. You," he turned to the lawyer, "you will not be allowed to bring any stories  _it,"_ he pointed at PJ, "may have told you in its vain justifications for attempted murder to the public." The man pushed the button that called for escorts to come take her away. "Is that understood?"

"I don't believe this," she said, looking more stunned than before. "Totalitarianism is happening right before my eyes. Not to mention taking away the freedom of the press."

"I can arrange for a cell of your own, if that is what you prefer." After he spoke, the door opened, and two muscly guards came through the doorway to flank her. Another entered behind them to stand beside PJ.

"Why are you doing this?" hissed the prisoner, his teal fur spiking and bristling. "What loyalty do you have to Suzy Johnson?"

"That is none of your concern," the man replied.

"What is the Conspirium?" PJ stood on the seat of his chair to bring himself to full height. "How are you involved with it?"

"Take the mindless animal away."

An unfathomable anger overcame PJ. The guard standing beside him reached out a hand, but PJ bit it, drawing blood. While he still had one wrist handcuffed to the metal chair he occupied, he was otherwise free to jump out of the seat and turn the chair in his hands outward like a four-spiked shield. He brought one leg down on the foot of the guard he had just bitten, and when the man jumped in pain he swept his good leg out from under him, toppling the guard down onto the floor.

The other two guards rushed over to help. With the screech of a wildman, PJ charged with the four chair legs pointing out and caught both men in the groin, dropping them instantly. Turning to the interrogator, wrath filled his eyes and could have burned the man like lasers. "I am not a mindless animal!" In a sophisticated movement PJ grasped the arms of the chair and charged the interrogator. With the skill of a gymnast he drove the legs of the chair into the floor like a pole-vaulter and flung his body upward in a hand-spring, pushing down on the chair to catch air then carrying the dead weight of it with him, thereby launching himself into a flying kick straight at the man. It connected in the center of his barrel-shaped chest, knocking him back against the one-way glass on the far wall.

PJ turned to the lawyer. "Are you ok?" She nodded, a little shakily. "We have to get out of here if we're going to get the truth out." He reached down and pulled the keys off the belt of one of the men he'd taken out and unlocked his cuffs. "Hurry!" he shouted, indicating toward the door.

"Wait," she said, turning back to the table. "Without the audio recording, we'll have no proof!" She grabbed her briefpurse and unceremoniously threw all her gear inside it like she was playing hot potato. "Alright, let's go!"

PJ nodded and led the way out. The two of them kept up a fast pace as they found a stairwell and skipped down two steps at a time. He worried at first he might be going too fast for her, but the lawyer seemed to be able to keep pace with him easily with her long strides. After two minutes an alarm sounded.

They reached the ground floor without running into anybody. However, as soon as they left the stairwell and looked down the hallway, there was a small army of agents coming straight for them.

"What do we do?" the lawyer asked, frantically.

"Give me the recording," PJ said. "I can't get both of us out of here, but I'm small enough I will be able to slip out alone. I'll take it straight to the President, and I promise you won't be locked up here for more than an hour."

"Okay." She nodded bravely before placing the device in his outstretched hand. "Be careful," she added. PJ turned back up the stairs. There was an air vent that was just his size on one wall. He pried it open and crawled inside, trying to pull the cover back in place behind him. The metal grate wasn't sealed anymore, but it at least stayed, that would have to do for now. PJ stowed away the recording and crawled through the dimly lit vent. He had no way of knowing which direction he was going, but he knew eventually he had to find an opening that led somewhere useful. By the time he found another hatch, it had been almost fifteen minutes since he and the lawyer initially escaped.

Looking through the slits in the air vent, PJ saw that he had found an office room with cubicles taking up the majority of the floor space. Most of the people he could see were paper-pushers, not the highly trained (not to mention heavily armed) guards he was trying to avoid. Still, there was no reason to emerge from the ventilation here and be seen, so he moved on.

He reached a point where the shaft turned vertical, climbing to the upper floors. PJ used all four limbs as well as his tail to shimmy his way up to the top. Once there, he found that the shaft ended with a grated vent like the one he'd entered through. He used his feet to kick it open and emerged into a vacant room. It was another smaller office, but this time there was nobody around. PJ crept to the door and looked down a long hallway. It was clear of his pursuers, so he picked a direction and sprinted. If the short flashes of scenery visible in the passing windows of the rooms he could see in were any indicator, he was several stories high. He could have sworn he saw the Washington Monument towering over the city skyline out the corner of one. He took a right turn.

This hallway served as the entryway for the elevators, and the second PJ saw them there was a ding. He slipped through a doorway onto another staircase at the exact same time an armed search party stepped into the foyer, barely dodging them. There was not very many places left for him to run. All he could do was keep going up the stairs, all the way to the top floor. PJ paused to catch his breath before he cracked the door open and looked out. This floor felt smaller than the ones below. He emerged from the staircase noiselessly. Instead of there being rooms and offices, this hallway was more like a hall of remembrance. Portraits of historical events and places lined the far wall, while a bust of George W. Bush, the President who called for the creation of the Department of Homeland Security clear back at the beginning of the century, waited at the end, a sentinel watching all who entered. PJ turned his tail toward the bust and looked for any means he could use for escape.

There were no windows on this floor, though all the windows in this building were probably bullet-proof anyway. The only chance he saw he had was the roof, but how would he get down? He had to be over a hundred feet high. Sounds coming from the stairs he had just used meant that he couldn't go back that way. The roof was his only option. He kicked down the locked door that granted rooftop access and gave one last hopeful look down the hallway for any last ideas when the staircase door burst open, and Suzy Johnson as well as the interrogator from earlier spied PJ up ahead.

"There he is!" The interrogator pointed. PJ spun on his heels and rushed up the last flight of steps before bursting out onto the rooftop. A flagpole positioned in the center jubilantly waved the Stars and Stripes far over his head. As Suzy and the interrogator appeared in the entrance right behind him, PJ stepped on to the ledge and looked down from the dizzying height. There was no way anyone could survive that kind of fall.

That sugary voice he had come to dread floated daintily on the wind to reach his ears. "What do you call a platypus at the end of his rope?" she asked.

PJ shot her a venomous glare. "Not a psychopathic killer, that's for sure!"

Suzy looked hurt for a moment. Then she waved him off. "No, silly! It's called Perrycord! Get it? 'Cause it sounds like 'paracord'?"

"You're grasping at straws," PJ contended.

"No matter, as you can see, there is no escape. Now, you can choose to come quietly and join us; or, well…" She gave a sweeping gesture with her hand, letting PJ figure out for himself what she was implying. "You could make a case for a new figure of speech. Something to the effect of it 'raining cats, dogs, and  _platypuses'._ "

PJ gritted his teeth, reviewing his options. "What is 'the Conspirium'? What are you trying to accomplish by assassinating President Flynn and her family?" he asked.

Suzy paced to one side, as did the man she had brought with her, though in the opposite direction—cutting off any possible retreat. "Would you say it is correct that the President of the United States of America wields more power than any other single man—or woman—on earth?" She asked.

"Yes, I would say that." PJ played along, wracking his brains for a plan.

"Well, you would be wrong. The President  _holds_  the power, but the President does not  _wield_  it. The Office is all for show, the President a puppet figurehead, to be manipulated by whoever controls the strings."

"And this 'Conspirium' is who does that?"

Suzy gave PJ a mysterious smile that could have shamed the Mona Lisa. "Oh, no. The Conspirium does  _much_  more than that," she declared. "We try to build a cartel on power, if you will. Many influential people have joined our brotherhood, now. Senators, Congressmen and –women, Corporate Executives, business tycoons, and many others. Hunger for power draws them in. Together, the Conspirium arranges for world events to happen in a way that profits our elite. Our influence extends to everything from oil prices to military power to the stock exchange."

"Impossible," PJ scoffed. "There is no way one group could have so much power."

The man spoke for the first time since arriving on the rooftop. "Do not doubt the Conspirium's reach. It extends farther than you could imagine."

"So far that it would send someone back in time to assassinate President Flynn and her friends as children?" PJ asked.

Suzy turned from her monolog to look the monotreme in the eyes. "I told you, didn't I? The Conspirium arranges historical events to happen the way we like. It's all thanks to the power of time travel. Back in the days before it was invented, it was believed that time travel would never be possible in reality, at least not going backwards in time. Einstein showed how Relativity would allow you to go forwards in time, but his theory indicated that you'd be stuck there if you tried. This is because mathematically, time is another dimension just like height, length, and width. We can measure these as distances—a triangle can be five feet high, a rectangle can be four feet long, a sphere can be three inches wide. Time is thus a distance of a different kind—for example, we would measure a day as 86,400 seconds long. It is still a physical length. And what do we know about lengths? They can never be negative. You can't hop on a train and travel  _negative_  20 miles to go home from work—the distance must always be positive. Time is the same way, it is impossible to travel a negative distance in time; or, another way of saying it is that you can't go into the past. Or so we thought, until a working Time Machine was built that laughed in the face of physics.

"Well, the Conspirium was looking for a shortcut to gaining more power, and time travel seemed to have all the answers. We attempted to rewrite history by sending an assassin to find President Clayton in the past, as a way to upset the balance of power."

"The Conspirium was behind the assassination attempt on President Clayton?" gasped PJ.

"Indeed. You could say it was our Maiden Voyage with time travel. Our first ambitious attempt to assume control of the Presidency. It was a failure. A spy discovered the plan and notified the Secret Service, which was just able to prevent us from resetting history. After that, the US government assumed the power to regulate all time travel, hoping they would make it virtually impossible for anyone to try again. Unfortunately for them, this worked perfectly in our favor.

"You see, the US Government has three arms of power: the Executive, who is the President; the Legislative—in other words, Congress—which is split into two bodies, the House and the Senate, to spread out the power; and the Judicial, represented by the Supreme Court. When the Founders of this nation wrote the Constitution, they meant for these three branches to balance out the powers of government using checks and balances, to prevent any one of them from gaining all the power. For almost two hundred and fifty years, it worked, until finally a small group of powerful individuals managed to unite the three branches together as one.

"The Conspirium sifted its way into the federal government one branch at a time. First, we placed our own people in Congress. Eventually, between our political machine and those senators we could buy or bribe, the Conspirium gained a majority in both houses, and at last it was time to make our next move. We could now step into the regulation of time travel. By the time there was a President set up who was essentially loyal to the Conspirium, we controlled two of the three branches. The President has the power to appoint Supreme Court Justices, so having the Executive was just a hop and a skip from the Judicial as well. Now, with our own people in all three branches, the Conspirium has become the  _de facto_  Government of the United States!"

"No," PJ whispered, unable to believe his own ears. "That can't be."

"It is," she succinctly stated. "Isn't it glorious? The Conspirium controls all three separately, like a brain controlling three arms at once. We have gained complete power of the whole federal government, without anybody knowing it! Meanwhile, the voters believe they live in this democracy where they actually get a say in anything! They couldn't be more wrong! They have no idea how much the Conspirium has grown or what we have become! What we will become!"

For the first time, the platypus took his eyes off of Suzy and looked for the Capital building to the southeast. Could there really be truth to all this? "No! I won't believe it," he denied in attempt to shake off the horror of her claims. "There's no way Isabella would help you in your evil plans! I know her very well, and she would never join something like that!"

"That's correct," charmed Suzy. "Or at least, it partially is. The Conspirium's hand is over the Oval Office, but not in the way you think. President Flynn may not be a member of our brotherhood, but she has nevertheless already graciously served our needs."

"What do you mean?" PJ asked.

That caused her to laugh. "So naïve! Of course she wouldn't join us, neither can she be bought, but that doesn't mean we can't still control her. That is where I come in! Have you learned nothing this whole time you've known me? I can be very persuasive when I want to be!"

"What are you saying?" demanded PJ.

With a flick of her golden hair, Suzy elaborated. "I told you, the President can be held on strings like a puppet, even without ever knowing it! Did I not tell you that I am the master of manipulation? I am the Puppetmaster!"

The very air seemed to draw thin. She paused for dramatic effect, allowing it to sink in. "Yes, as a matter of fact, Isabella Flynn is actually quite easy to manipulate. She's smart and strong-willed, all right, but if you put a positive spin on it, you can get her to swallow anything. And her husband, for all his renown, is even more credulous than she is! With my position as Director of the CIA, I get all the information that reaches to the President before she does, and I can use it to make her believe what I want, say what I want, and do what I want. My influence and power is greater than all the rest of the Conspirium, for President Flynn is my play doll!"

A knot formed in PJ's stomach as he remembered the batch of ravaged dolls Suzy kept in the trunk she had shown him and Perry back when she had them trapped in the museum. It made him shudder to remember how she treated her dolls. But he had to ask anyway. "Then why, if you already had a perfectly good doll, would you destroy it? Why go back in time and assassinate her if you already claim to control her? How would the Conspirium benefit from that?"

" _That_ , my small mammalian friend,  _is the question_ ," declared Suzy. "Why, indeed? The answer is very simple. What could you possibly want when you have all power? The only thing you want is  _more._  Growing up, I soon learned ways to manipulate others into doing what I wanted. What began as self-interest grew into a hobby, then an addiction, then an obsession. The more I could control others, the more power I gained. By the time I was an adult, I decided it was time to take it to the next level. I entered the CIA because the first step to controlling others is knowing everything about them. Working in intelligence jumped out to me as the best way to learn the secrets everyone hides, the secrets that give you control. Because secrets are what give you power!

"Even the Conspirium's power is based on secrets. But controlling most of the government isn't enough for us. Just as continuous feasting will cause your appetite to grow over time, gaining power only draws out the lust for more. We feel it is time to take the highest seat of government into our own hands. Will we stop there? No. After America is ours, we will look to the world! President Isabella Flynn has served her country well, but it is time someone new assumed control with the ushering in of a new age! And the Conspirium will lead us into that age! An age of worldwide peace, where our control will force everyone to do as we wish! We will have all power! There will be no more war, no more chaos, no more tragedy, no more heartbreak!"

"At the cost of everyone's freedom!" PJ argued.

"Well," Suzy said, "since you care about your freedom so much, I give you one final choice. Join us, or face your doom. Make it quickly now, this breeze is messing up my curls."

It was grim. PJ took one last glance over his shoulder, and saw that she was right. What choice did he have? If he jumped, there would be no one else left to stop her. The wind was indeed picking up as well; the flapping of the flag overhead attested to that. It whipped and snapped to the air current as if trying to get his attention, but he couldn't bear to look at it. Not if betraying his country was the only way to spare his life.

"I guess I have no choice," he sagged.

"That is right," cooed the blonde assassin. "Come with us. Come and glimpse the new world you will help us forge."

The defeated platypus stepped forward to be escorted back inside. Suzy's outstretched arms guided him back while the interrogator took up a position at PJ's rear to march behind him. His surrender complete, PJ couldn't help but cast a wistful glance at the banner he had so many times pledged allegiance to as it streamed from above. The colors seemed to dance on the breeze, ready to be carried away from earthly troubles, were it not for the pole it was anchored to. If only the wind could have so easily carried him away before he was forced to do the unthinkable and turn his back on his country. PJ stopped and did a double take.

The interrogator accidentally bumped into him. "Keep moving," he ordered, before following PJ's eyes up. "That flag won't mean anything to you much longer," he asserted before giving the platypus a shove.

PJ stumbled to the doorframe of the stairwell and turned around. "On second thought," he declared, "I think I will jump."

"What?" Suzy gasped, astonished.

"You heard me." PJ blasted off in the direction of the flagpole.

"Get him!" Suzy ordered the man, and he sprinted after him.

PJ leaped high onto the pole and climbed as fast as he could go. It was just like climbing the rope in the gymnasium back at the Academy, and he was just out of reach by the time Suzy and her underling got to the flagpole's base.

"Get down from there!" Suzy commanded. "You're making a serious mistake!"

PJ did not answer until he had ascended all the way up and gripped a corner of the flag. "No, but I almost did. But Old Glory has opened my eyes to the freedom She stands for! And by 'freedom', I mean my chance to escape; and by 'opened my eyes' I mean gave me the idea; and—no, the rest I think you can pretty much figure out on your own."

There was nothing Suzy or the man could do to stop him as he bit clean through the string the flag was held by. He scrambled the last foot up to the ball at the crest of the pole and balanced on it like a bird. "This platypus is out! Peace!" With that, PJ grabbed the corners of both ends of the flag long-ways and launched himself, spreading the Star Spangled Banner over his head like a parachute. The wind caught him by an updraft and lifted him high over the heads of his would-be captors, who were left to gawk as he sailed away with the breeze. Suzy screeched like a banshee and shook her fist at him, but he didn't bother to respond.

When the people of the city below saw a short, teal platypus coasting in flight overhead, drifting by the drag of an American Flag "parachute", a few were inspired. Some shook their heads, wondering what sort of a strange world they lived in. Others shrugged and went about their business. None of them suspected that with him, the hopes of liberty and justice for all had just taken flight as well, to be secured for them and their future generations.

The moment he was on terra firma again, PJ ran straight for the White House. He had to get there before Suzy or more of her cronies found him. After cursing his short, stubby legs every step of the way for not being fast enough, at last he rounded the security fence and doubled over with his hands on his knees, gasping for breath beside the gatekeeper's post.

"I—work for—Secret Service," he panted, chest heaving. He slid his ID badge across a desk. "Gotta—see—the President—right away."

The guard took his badge and scanned it. "PJ?" She asked. The platypus nodded. Without hesitation, she hit an alarm and put her radio to her mouth. "The platypus is here!" She broadcast on all channels. "I repeat, the platypus is here!"

PJ practically jumped out of his fur. This sentry must be part of the Conspirium, too! He bolted out the door and up the north lawn, adrenaline granting him new reserves of strength.

"Wait!" the woman shouted, but too late.

Before he had made it to the front door of the White House, there were already more men running to catch him. PJ looked to dodge them all, knowing his only shot now was to see President Flynn herself. Then, something one of the security agents shouted caused him to stop.

"PJ, stop! We need to take you to the President! Her orders are to see you right away!"

If the Conspirium were trying to stop him, why would they be giving him what he wanted? PJ cautiously stopped and took a defensive stance. "How do I know you aren't going to arrest me again?"

"Arrest you?" asked one of the agents, who PJ recognized as another member of the Secret Service. The look on the other agent's face seemed like genuine confusion. "No, we've been waiting for you! You've been missing for over a week and a half! We sent out search parties looking for you; the Chief of Staff said it was a matter of national security! The President would like you to personally brief her."

"Will you take me to her?" PJ asked, eyeing the taser on the young man's belt which he kept a hand unnervingly close to.

Sensing PJ's distrust, he held up his hands peacefully. "That's what we're here for, but you running around like this is making us a little nervous."

The platypus relaxed only slightly. "It was only because I'm in a hurry. The Chief of Staff was right, it is extremely urgent."

"Come with me, then," beckoned the guard as several more caught PJ. "No, let him walk," he told them. "This is PJ, he's one of our team. We've all worked together before, you guys know we can trust him. C'mon, PJ, I'll lead you to the President."

PJ warily watched the other men over his shoulder, but they let him go without further question. He was led past the familiar white Greek columns into the most famous place of residence on earth. Within five minutes, he was standing outside the Oval Office, and the doors opened to let him in.

* * *

For the sake of the five other individuals in the room the President trusted, he told President Isabella Flynn everything from the beginning, just as he had told it in an interrogation room an hour earlier. The President of course knew about what the assassin had done to her in her childhood, but she didn't interrupt him as he explained all the details for her advisers. He talked about how he'd first rescued Phineas and Ferb as children from a collapsing telephone pole, then stopped the assassin from kidnapping them and Isabella in an ice cream truck. From there, he explained how she'd managed to capture him and Perry, using them as bait until Phineas and Ferb tricked her into thinking she had succeeded. He expounded on how he'd found out the assassin was the Director of the CIA, and she was working for a group known as the Conspirium to overtake the whole government. At last, he played for them the lawyer's recording, which gave everything about his story tangible proof.

"All along, the Conspirium has been trying to control the affairs of the country through you," PJ told the President in conclusion. "Suzy Johnson claims to have been able to control you to benefit the Conspirium."

A dark look crossed President Flynn's face. "I'm ashamed. I would have never believed it myself if you hadn't told me. Director Johnson always seemed so sweet, even while we were younger. She's family. She's Phineas' sister-in-law. I'm ashamed I trusted her."

"She acts sweet and innocent to get what she wants," PJ said. "It's not your fault, Madame President, she played us all. The best we can do now is find a nice prison cell where she won't be able to corrupt or influence anyone ever again."

"What about the Conspirium?" The Chief of Staff asked.

"Same goes for them," declared PJ. "But, that brings up one more thing Suzy said that worries me. She said the Conspirium has placed their people everywhere. Congress, the Supreme Court, Suzy herself was head of the CIA. The man from the Department of Homeland Security who interrogated me was part of it. I suspect Suzy has her people in the CIA that are included as well. We aren't just talking government leaders, here. Anybody could be part of this. We don't know who else we can trust at this point. Even members of your Cabinet might be involved."

The President sighed from behind her desk. "This could be the greatest crisis our nation has faced since the Cold War. PJ, your bringing this to my attention shows you were indeed the right man—er, person for the job."

PJ smiled slightly. He noticed she was careful to call him a 'person', something non-derogatory, being an anthropomorphic animal clone. Few cared to show him that sort of respect. He was grateful.

"Still," President Flynn added, "this does show just how tenuous the balance of power really is. As time travel becomes a more common avenue for not only espionage and scientific discoveries, but for people who want to move to a new time like you would move to a new house and even as a means of tourism as well, we need to be more careful of where—and when—things really do happen. Not to mention people like Suzy Johnson using it for their own purposes. The Conspirium is now on the top of our threat list."

The Commander in Chief rose from her chair. "I want to hold a strategy meeting this evening to discuss what we are going to do about the Conspirium. I'd like you to be there, PJ, as our newest expert on them. Tomorrow morning, we will hold a press conference to make their deeds public and bring the fight to them."

* * *

South Lawn of the White House  
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington D. C.  
0950 July 16, 2049

The President concluded her final remarks and took her seat as the lights and cameras of the media flashed a firestorm around her. PJ stood and was given a stool to stand on so he could look over the microphone as he spoke. He was surprised to discover at this moment that a fight with insurgents or getting sling-shot round the Moon was no more nerve-wracking than giving a speech after having been introduced by the President of the United States of America.

"Thank you," he squeaked nervously, but his voice was so quiet the microphone didn't catch it. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Thank you, Madame President." This time thunderous applause greeted him, and he was given a few more seconds to compose himself while the noise died down.

"Everything that the President has told you is true," he continued, trying to ignore the booming of his own voice over the loudspeakers. He swallowed again. "As she has already told you, we have averted a national crisis. I myself heard about this group, this 'Conspirium', with my own two ears. This new menace has indeed been controlling much in the political system for some time now. But I can assure you, they will be weeded out! We will find these groups, and we will bring them to justice! Once we find the recently impeached Director of the CIA, Suzy Johnson, who went into hiding as soon as we uncovered her plot; we will make this world a safe place once again!" The explosion that met his ears was like a volcano as the crowd erupted in applause. PJ waited for them to finish before he continued.

"I'd like to read to you a letter I received from a friend a long time ago," he said, clearing his throat while smoothing out a neatly folded piece of paper on the podium. He scanned the hastily scrawled handwriting of a young boy one more time.

_Dear PJ,_

_I can't thank you enough for all you did for us today. Even as I'm writing this before I go to bed, I have to listen while Ferb here keeps distracting me by going on and on about you. Why, besides Perry, I can't think of a single other platypus that has had that effect on him._

_The reason I'm writing this is because I want you to know how much you mean to us. I suppose we probably won't see you again for a very long time, probably not until Ferb and I are all grown up. But you can trust that we will never forget who you are. You will always be our friend._

_Since today is the Fourth of July, I want to share with you something meaningful that the Declaration of Independence has brought to my life. There is one phrase that gives me strength and hope when I look forward to an uncertain future (without the help of a Time Machine). It says, 'To secure our rights (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness), governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government… But when a long train of abuses and usurpations... evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security.'_

_I love the way the Declaration puts it. What it is saying is what I always say; to seize the day. The power to make a difference doesn't rest in anyone else but you and me. That principle has guided me all my life, and it will guide you when you are in self-doubt._

_I learned today that even if our destiny seems laid out for us, we still have the power to choose. For that reason, freedom is one of our greatest and most precious gifts. I know you will continue to fight for that gift in the future, and whatever happens, we will always be great friends._

_Sincerely,_

_Phineas Flynn_

_Signed July 4, 2014_

"On second thought," PJ said after a long pause as he looked over the letter that in reality he'd only received a few days ago, "this may be a little too personal for me to share at this time. But if there was one thing I would have us all take from it, it is that our freedom is what brings us our greatest happiness. I know that the founders of this great nation knew that truth, and they were willing to fight to defend it when they signed the Declaration of Independence. We face a threat not unlike the one Thomas Jefferson described, one that is 'evincing a design to reduce us  _under absolute despotism'_." He emphasized the last three words for effect. "But as long as this land remains free, if we will always be able to sustain that same courage the founders had in our own hearts, it will remain a land of liberty, forever. Thank you."

PJ ducked shyly away from the thunderstorm of applause to retake his seat before the reporters could shower him with questions. The President stood again and raised her hands to ask for silence. The crowd quieted down.

"As you can see, PJ the Platypus is a very determined individual," she stated. "He has proven himself a national hero, and for that I hereby award him with this—the Presidential Medal of Courage, and give him my personal gratitude for the services he has rendered our country."

The President turned to face PJ and flashed her famously beautiful smile while she beckoned him to come stand with her. He had to reset his slacken jaw before he arose to his feet and moved forward to accept the award. If a platypus could blush, he would have, but he accepted the medal with a salute to the Commander in Chief.

The audience rose to their feet to give him a standing ovation. He was a hero, now. At last, all these people looked past his outward appearance and saw his true self. They didn't look at him like a freak anymore. PJ didn't often weep, but on this occasion he had to blink several times to keep the water in his eyes at bay. He was glad he did. As soon as the blurriness was gone, he looked into the crowd and saw the lawyer, who had been the first to hear his story, clapping for him. Then, when he saw motion out of the corner of his eye, there was the First Gentleman, rising to greet his wife and PJ at the stand. His taller, quieter step-brother followed, as did the First Daughter. They all came forward to shake PJ's hand.

"Well done, PJ, well done," Phineas congratulated. Ferb nodded silently as well.

Marie, the teenage heartthrob of half the country with her mother's looks but her father's hair color, beamed at him. Isabella put an arm around her daughter's shoulder. "PJ, I am making you head of my investigative team that will seek out these new enemies. The responsibilities of finding the Conspirium and all others who look to overthrow our government will be put in your capable hands."

"I'm honored," PJ stammered.

"You are the best candidate, man or platypus, for the job," she insisted.

"Thank you."

"PJ," Phineas said, and for a moment, there was the face of the same creative, fun-loving, and adventurous boy PJ once knew. "Welcome home."

THE END

* * *

Epilogue

The one whose followers called him The King turned off the news feed with a snap of his finger. He rose from his throne and turned to the blonde haired woman kneeling before him. "The Conspirium has come to light, and our good President has made it clear she intends to hunt us down like hounds chasing after rabbits."

Suzy Johnson kept her head low in veneration, her sugary voice bathing his feet in a coating of honey. "Little do they know that we are the type of rabbits with swords for teeth, O My King."

"Yes," The King agreed. "And like rabbits, we grow stronger in numbers with each passing day. Soon, not even the full might of the United States of America will be able to stand up to us." His green eyes sparkled as he placed a hand under her chin and lifted, permitting her to rise. "When the fire and the ash and the smoke and the blood reach them in terror and horror, they will have no choice but to step aside and let me rule in their place. The people will soon learn of the great deception their own government has been hiding from them all these years, they will be ready to support a New King when the time is right."

"Surely, O King, what you speak is truth," Suzy whispered. "Not even that platypus has any idea what the new future has in store. Freedom is drawing its final breaths. The cancer of liberty has nearly killed the body, all that is left to do is to cut the malignancy out."

The King searched her face deeply before returning to sit upon his golden throne. Without warning, as if some private thought in the vectors of his mind amused him, the corners of his mouth turned upward in a sinister smile.

* * *

**Final notes:**

**~The Department of Homeland Security program was created by George W. Bush after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. At the present, its temporary headquarters are in Washington D.C.'s Nebraska Avenue Complex. A new, permanent headquarters complex was planned to be completed by 2021 at the St. Elizabeths Hospital campus, but budgeting setbacks since the 2008 recession are expected to delay its opening. The architectural representation presented herein of this future building is in no way meant to be accurate or correct.**

**~All other historical facts regarding the Secret Service, former presidents of the United States, landmarks, the Declaration of Independence, and the events associated with the American War for Independence are accurately presented.**

**~The Presidential Medal of Courage is a fictional creation. It is loosely based off the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is given to only those who have made "an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors".**

**~If PJ was arrested July 6 2049, and the interrogation occurred on July 15, 2049, you're probably wondering what happened during the nine days in-between. Well, when I began writing, I didn't have a super-clear picture of what sort of time span this story would be occupying. I decided to give myself plenty of time with the dates to be on the safe side, and once it became clear to me it wasn't necessary, it was a little late to change them into something more realistic. If the interrogation happened on, say, the seventh, it would have changed nothing about the plot line, but would make a little more sense. Oh well, live and learn.**

**~Once again, I do not own "Phineas and Ferb" or any names, characters, or places associated with it. I do not own the DeviantArt characters Marie Flynn or Thomas Fletcher. Thanks for reading!**


End file.
